REFLECTION OF BLOOM’S REVISED TAXONOMY IN THE SOCIAL
SCIENCE QUESTIONS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL CERTIFICATE
EXAMINATION
Mahbubul Hasan
Training Coordinator, ROSC Project, DPE, MoPME, Ex-Faculty, Scholastica.
Email:shaondu@hotmail.com
Iffat Naomee
Training Coordinator, ROSC Project, DPE, MoPME
Email: naomee077@gmail.com
Rokshana Bilkis
Deputy Director, NAEM
Email:rokshana.naem@gmail.com
Abstract
Innovation of new methods and techniques in assessment is always a desire for this 21st
century. Educators and teachers are trying their best to innovate new assessment
techniques for sharpening students’ intelligence. Following this trend the Government of
Bangladesh has also introduced creative question using the idea of Bloom’s revised
taxonomy from 2011 at secondary level. However, is the technique really being creative
enough to judge students’ creativity, is a question. This study tried to give some insights
for the answer of that question. The objectives of this study were to examine the
reflection of Bloom’s revised taxonomy in the social science questions of Secondary
School Certificate Examination of Dhaka board and to compare the level of applying
Bloom’s revised taxonomy in the questions before and after creative question has been
set. The study was descriptive in nature and was primarily based on document analysis.
Secondary School Certificate Examination question papers of Social Science of Dhaka
board of the years 2009 to 2012 had been analyzed for the study. The findings were that
in the year 2009 and 2010 most of the objective type questions were based on knowledge
and understanding. On the other hand for subjective type questions few questions were
found from understanding and analyzing besides knowledge based questions. A quite
different scenario was in 2011 and 2012 where importance had been given to knowing,
understanding, applying and analyzing in both subjective and objective questions;
however, evaluating and creating was ignored again. So, for a quality education it has
been suggested to use all the sub-domains of Cognitive domain of Bloom’s revised
taxonomy in all the subjective ad objective questions of every subject of secondary level
of Bangladesh.
Key Words: Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, Social Science, Secondary School Certificate
Examination
47
1.
Introduction
2.
Students’ learning is the main focus of an
education system. It develops curriculum, designs
teaching-learning strategies and determines learning
experiences necessary for students’ learning. There
exist a direct and strong relationship between
assessment of students’ achievement and students’
learning. Assessment approach shapes and dictates
content, ways, process and quality of learning.
(Aziz, 2011) According to Gipps (1994), “There is a
relationship between assessment and the way in
which subject matter is presented in teaching.”
However, Bloom, Engelhart, Frust, Hill &
Krathwohl (1956) had this question in mind
regarding the objective of teaching,
Some teachers believe their students
should “really understand”, others desire
their students to “internalize knowledge”,
still others want their students to “grasp
the core or essence” or “comprehend”. Do
they all mean the same thing?
To solve this mystery and different problems
related to this issue, Benjamin Bloom along with his
team established taxonomy for educational
objectives in order to help the curriculum
developers and the teachers to set learning
experiences for the students and to develop
assessment tools to measure their learning. They
suggested that the learning experiences for the
students should be categorized in three major
domains- Cognitive domain, Affective domain and
Psychomotor domain so that the overall
development of a student can be ensured as well as
measured. All these domains have some subdomains according to difficulty level. The main
concern of this study had been the cognitive domain
and application of its sub-domains on evaluation
system
of
Secondary
School
Certificate
Examination of Bangladesh.
48
Background of Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s taxonomy is a very useful and relevant
to the planning and design of education and training
courses, teaching and lesson plans, learning and
development within every aspect of education.
That’s why still now, Bloom’s taxonomy is the most
used and popular taxonomy in the field of
education.
The cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy
encompasses a hierarchical series of intellectual
skills involving the acquisition and use of
knowledge that ranges from simple recall to the
ability to judge and evaluate learned material.
Bloom identified six levels within the cognitive
domain. Cognitive domain’s sub-domains are as
follows-
Figure 1: Hierarchy of sub-domains of Cognitive
domain
The sub-domains of Cognitive domain have
been described by Isaacs (1996) Knowledge: the recall of specific items


Comprehension: can recall, but can do a little
more (e.g. paraphrase, define, discuss to some
extent)
Application: all of the above, but can take
information of an abstract nature and use it in
concrete situations



Analysis: can break down a communication
into its constituent parts, revealing the
relationships among them
Synthesis: can pull together many disorganized
elements or parts so as to form a whole
Evaluation: makes judgments about the value
of materials or methods.
Table 1: Bloom’s taxonomy Cognitive Domain by Bonanno & Todd (2006)
Objectives
KNOWLEDGE
Specifics
Ways and means of dealing with specifics
Universals and abstractions in a field
COMPREHENSION
Translation
Interpretation
Extrapolation
APPLICATION
Use of abstraction in specific and concrete
situations
ANALYSIS
Elements
Relationships
Organizational principles
Process
Define
Recognize
Recall
Identify
Label
Understand
Examine
Show
Collect
List
Translate
Interpret
Explain
Describe
Summarize
Demonstrate
Apply
Solve
Experiment
Demonstrate
Construct
Show
Make
Illustrate
Record
Connect
Relate
Differentiate
Classify
Arrange
Group
Interpret
Organize
Categorize
Take apart
Compare
49
Outcomes
Labels
Names
Facts
Definitions
Concepts
Information
Skills
Define
Locate
Argument
Explanation
Description
Summary
Define
Locate
Select
Present
Organize
Diagram
Illustration
Collection
Map
Puzzle
Model
Report
Photograph
Lesson
Graph
Questionnaire
Category
Survey
Chart
Outline
Diagram
Conclusion
List
Plan
Summary
Select
Organize
Present
Locate
Select
Present
SYNTHESIS
Unique communication
Plan of operation
Set of abstract relations
EVALUATION
Judgments in terms of internal evidence
Judgments in terms of external evidence
Dissect
Investigate
Separate
Design
Redesign
Combine
Consolidate
Add to
Compose
Hypothesize
Construct
Translate
Imagine
Invent
Create
Infer
Produce
Predict
Interpret
Assess
Judge
Criticize
Decide
Discuss
Verify
Dispute
Choose
2.1 Limitations of Original Taxonomy
While applying the taxonomy, several educators
faced problems. A remarkable flaw of the taxonomy
was the assumption that cognitive processes are
ordered on a single dimension of simple to complex
behavior. (Furst, 1994, p.34) Anderson, Krathwohl,
Airasian, Cruikshank, Mayer, Pintrich, Raths and
Wittrock (2001, p.309) suggested “Cumulative
Hierarchy” which means, “Mastery of a more
complex category required prior mastery of all the
less complex categories below it” was a “stringent
standard.” So, the domains or sub-domains must not
overlap in order to keep that “Cumulative
Hierarchy.” But some of the verbs of each subdomain showed frequent overlaps. Again, Ormall
(1974) found some contradictions in using the
original taxonomy. For example, some knowledge
based objectives were more complex than some
Poem
Project
Design brief
Formula
Invention
Story
Solution
Machine
Film
Program
Product
Select
Organize
Present
Opinion
Judgment
Recommendation
Verdict
Conclusion
Evaluation
Investigation
Editorial
Evaluate
analysis or evaluation based objectives. Krietzer and
Madaus (1994) also said that synthesis is more
complex than evaluation and synthesis actually
requires evaluation. The original taxonomy was
influenced by behaviorist learning theories.
However over the years, introduction of several new
theories such as constructivism, metacognition etc
has made students more knowledgeable of and
responsible for their own learning and thinking. In
order to include the extract of these theories into the
taxonomy and to address the limitations of the
original taxonomy, a group of cognitive
psychologists,
curriculum
and
instructional
researchers and testing and assessment specialists
revised the original taxonomy. (Anderson et al.,
2001)
50
2.2 The Revised Taxonomy
Anderson et al. brought some major changes to
the original taxonomy in order to keep it updated
and check its flaws. The new version of the
taxonomy is known as the revised taxonomy. Most
notable change in the revised taxonomy is the move
from one dimension to two dimensions. The revised
taxonomy separates the noun and verb components
of the original taxonomy into two separate
dimensions: The knowledge dimension and the
cognitive process dimension. The structure of the
knowledge domain in the revised taxonomy
highlights the difference between the original one
with the revised one. According to Pohl (2000) the
names of six major categories were changed and
some were reorganized. As the taxonomy reflects
different forms of thinking and thinking is an active
process; verbs were used rather than nouns. The
knowledge category was renamed. Knowledge is an
outcome or product of thinking not a form of
thinking. So it was replaced by remembering.
Comprehension and synthesis were retitled to
understanding and creating respectively, in order to
better reflect the nature of the thinking defined in
each category.
Figure 2: Changes in the sub-domains of Cognitive Domain
Table 2: Cognitive Domain of the Revised Taxonomy by Overbaugh and Schultz
New Bloom’s Taxonomic Level &
Explanatory Question
Remembering: can the student recall
or remember the information?
Understanding: can the student
explain ideas or concepts?
Applying: can the student use the
information in a new way?
Corresponding Action Verbs
define, duplicate, list, memorize, recall, repeat, reproduce
state
classify, describe, discuss, explain, identify, locate,
recognize, report, select, translate, paraphrase
choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate,
interpret, operate, schedule, sketch, solve, use, write
51
Analyzing: can the student
distinguish between the parts?
Evaluating: can the student justify a
stand or decision?
Creating: can the student create new
product or point of view?
3.
appraise, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate,
discriminate, distinguish, examine, experiment, question, test
appraise, argue, defend, judge, select, support, value,
evaluate
assemble, construct, create, design, develop, formulate,
write
Objectives of the Study
Main purpose of this research was to find out the
reflection of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy on the
social science question papers of the Secondary
School Certificate Examination. To serve this
purpose, some specific objectives had been set.
Those are as follows1. To examine the reflection of Bloom’s revised
taxonomy in the social science questions of
Secondary School Certificate Examination of
Dhaka board.
2. To compare the level of applying Bloom’s
revised taxonomy in the questions before and
after creative question has been set.
4.
Rationale
The standard of questioning pattern must be
assured for measuring the curriculum’s outcome
properly. As each subject differs from the nature
and objectives of another, the assessment system of
a particular subject must be able in assessing the
performance of its distinct features. Curriculum is
concerned not with what students will do in the
learning situation, but with what they will learn as a
consequence of what they do. Curriculum is
concerned with results. (Johnson, 1967)
The main objective of preparing curriculum is to
develop learners’ knowledge, attitude and according
to Bangladesh Education Policy 2010 skill and
secondary education aims to bring out learners’
latent talent and potential. So, the evaluation system
should be designed focusing these goals. In
Bangladesh, question-answer is the mostly used tool
for evaluating students’ learning plus Bloom’s
taxonomy has an important role in patterning
questions and in assessing students’ knowledge,
attitude and skill as well as talent and potential.
Thus, it is necessary to know whether the questions
of Secondary School Certificate Examination have
been set according to Bloom’s taxonomy or not.
In Secondary School Certificate Examination of
Bangladesh, the pattern of questioning which is
being used is open ended questions (subjective) and
multiple choice questions (objective).Earlier the
trend of items selected for the questions was mostly
knowledge based. However, from 2011, the
questioning pattern has been changed to creative
questioning which involves use of the sub-domains
of cognitive domain of Bloom’s revised taxonomy.
Thus this study has been designed to find out the
actual reflection of Bloom’s revised taxonomy in
Secondary School Certificate Examination from
before and after starting creative questioning and
compare between the two periods.
5.
Methodology
The study has been carried out based on
descriptive mode of research. Data and evidence has
been gathered from different sources for the purpose
of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data has
been analyzed statistically using table of
specification and some interpretation has been made
thematically. The study was primarily based on
document analysis. The social science question
papers (both subjective and objective) of Secondary
School Certificate Examination were the main
52
elements for the study. Among all the question
papers of different years, four years’ question
papers had been chosen as sample. Those were
questions of 2009 and 2010 (Before the period of
creative questions) along with 2011 and 2012 (After
6.
the arrival of creative questions). The question
papers were mainly analyzed according to Bloom’s
revised taxonomy, then comparison was made
between 2009, 2010 and 2011, 2012.
Analysis and Findings
6.1 Analysis of Subjective Questions
The chart below presents the item specification in percentage by four years’ (2009, 2010, 2011 and
2012) subjective questions of Social Science of Dhaka board.
60
58.33
58.33
2525
2525
50
40
30
20
10
12.5
8.33
20.84
2525
8.33
8.33
0 0 0
2009
25
20.84
16.67
12.5
2010
2011
0 0 0 0
2012
0
Figure 3: Percentage of Item Specification of Subjective Questions
According to the collected data it has been found
that most of the questions in almost every year were
asked to evaluate students’ knowledge and
understanding only. Few question also touched
other sub-domains like applying and evaluating. No
question has been found from the creating sub-
domain perhaps because attainment of this subdomain is not very easily measurable. However,
when the two periods has compared, it has been
found that there was a slight increase in the number
application and analysis based questions and a
sudden decrease in understanding based questions.
6.2 Analysis of Objective Questions
The chart below presents the item specification in percentage by four years’ (2009, 2010, 2011 and
2012) objective questions of Social Science of Dhaka board.
53
100
100
88
80
60
57.5 57.5
2009
2010
40
20
25
12
10
0
25
12.5
0 0
2011
0 0
5 7.5
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
2012
0
Figure 4: Percentage of Item Specification of Objective Questions
At the time of analyzing objective type
questions a very different scenario has been found.
In all the years, highest priority has been given to
knowing. Before the period of creative questioning,
the MCQ type questions were almost all knowledge
and understanding based. Nevertheless, after
introducing creative questioning, the MCQ part has
changed dramatically. Some questions from
applying and analyzing were also found in the MCQ
questions of 2011 and 2012. But again, there was no
question from evaluating and creating perhaps
because of the same reason that evaluation and
creation skills were not easily measureable through
MCQ type questions.
7.
Discussion and Recommendation
The findings of the study shows that there have
been a number of changes in the question format
after introducing creative questioning system, but
the changes are still not up to the mark. In the
creative question system, the sub-domains have
been categorized in four parts- knowing,
understanding, applying and higher order thinking
(analyzing, evaluating and creating). There should
be equal number of questions from each of these
domains. But it is a matter of concern that the board
questions did not reflect this thing correctly. Some
questions
which
were
categorized
under
understanding have actually been found as
knowledge based. Again, in higher order thinking
based questions, almost all the questions were only
from analyzing and no other sub-domain.
This new system of creative questioning is
without any doubt a very good and fruitful initiative
for the education system of Bangladesh. If the
system can be employed efficiently, it will surely
bring change in the education system of the country
as well as students’ insights and outlooks. However,
this system has not been understood correctly by the
teachers and educators yet. As a result, there has
been room for improvement. It is hoped that in the
upcoming years the question patterns will improve
and it will thus help the learners to achieve the
overall goal of education.
Here go some recommendations to improve the
quality of questions in creative question system for
54
the betterment of education system as well as
learners life. The recommendations are






A strong curriculum development unit should
be established in order to create quality
questions for fulfilling the demands of creative
questions.
Higher order thinking capacity building should
be given more priority and for this, educators
should train teachers and question makers. For
this an advance training cell should be
developed.
Along with question making, textbooks,
classroom practices and other related issues
should be reformatted in order to emphasize
higher order thinking. There should be more
room for practicing higher order skills in the
textbooks for the students.
For raising awareness about the new creative
question system throughout the country and to
make every individual aware of this new
system,
some
television
programs,
advertisements should be telecast and
campaigns should be done in both urban and
rural areas.
Along with authorities of Government and nongovernment organizations, National Curriculum
and Textbook Board as well as all the education
boards and other stakeholders directly related
with question making need advanced training
on question making and application of blooms
revised taxonomy in the questions.
Teachers should be given more training for
better understanding of the creative question
system and should be encouraged to develop
creative question more and use those in school
assessment system.
Teachers training colleges, Institute of
Education and Research (IER) of University of
Dhaka and Rajshahi University, National
Academy for Educational Management
(NAEM), Primary Training Institutes (PTIs)
and all the educational institutions should come
forward to make decisions about creating new
assessment techniques using Bloom’s revised
taxonomy, which will be helpful for judging
students’ level of cognitive skills.
8.
55
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