Part One - Basics of Learning
Chapter #4 - Cognitive Domain—Not All Challenges Are Alike
Cynthia Desrochers, Chancellor’s Office & Ed Nuhfer, CSU Channel Islands
There is more to a question than simply what it asks. Understanding the thinking that
accompanies a question gives us valuable life skills.
Have you ever thought about why some questions seem hard to answer and others seem easy? Is
it possible that the hardest questions to answer might generally be the questions that are also the
hardest to ask? This chapter shows why all questions are not alike.
Cognition refers to conscious thinking, and the cognitive domain refers to a spectrum of kinds of
conscious thinking. Nearly 60 years ago, a team of researchers classified cognitive thinking into
six levels represented by six distinct kinds of challenges. Responding well to all such challenges
requires building different kinds of neural networks. Let’s consider three questions as a way to
understand the levels.
1. What is the capital of California?
2. Why was Sacramento chosen as the capital of California?
3. If Sacramento grew as a city because of its location next to a major river, what other
cities outside of California were likely developed for the same reason?
Note what your thinking feels like as you try to answer each one. The first asks you to recall
from memory a one-word response: Sacramento. The response requires knowledge, the first of
the six levels. In these challenges you either know the answer or you do not. Producing the
correct answer likely feels very easy because processing a learned fact requires use of only
simple neural networks. Acquiring carefully chosen foundational knowledge is important
because we cannot succeed in challenges at the other levels without it. For example, memorizing
the phone book for Boulder, Colorado, offers no practical value. However, if we learn the
vocabulary of a discipline, that knowledge is power because the entire information systems of
the Web and our libraries are accessed through key words. We need to know vocabulary in order
to access the vast information sources, just as we need to know the name of our friend we want
to call in Boulder.
Question 2 above feels harder. Having to search our foundational knowledge for possible reasons
that Sacramento was selected state capital requires a bigger neural network than Question 1. Was
it the Gold Rush, the central location within the state, its proximity to a large river for
transporting goods, people, and information? Our answer could include all three points and be
accurate, but to respond to this type of question, we have to understand knowledge as well as
explain it in our own words to perform comprehension.
Question 3 asks us to consider the generalization presented—“major rivers are good places to
build major cities”—and transfer that idea to another similar places on the map. This is the
application, or transfer, level of thinking as discussed at the beginning of this chapter. To
provide good responses to such a challenge requires more than information most of us can carry
around in our heads. However, the process of finding the needed information, and the act of
bringing it together in the form of a written report builds a large neural network that starts to
provide us with the understanding of how to apply knowledge. Our becoming adept at applying
knowledge requires doing many application challenges. But learning process is more important
than the answer to any single challenge, because the neural networks we build give us the
strengths we need to face application challenges in general, including high-stakes challenges in
life outside of school.
Many of life’s most important decisions
are at the evaluation level: selecting a
career to pursue, picking one’s life partner,
and moving to the city, dessert, or shore.
picture of a student
studying in a CSU
library
Consider three more challenges. These represent in increasing order analysis, synthesis, and
evaluation.
4. If Los Angeles had been selected as the capital of California, explain the impact this would
have on both cities.
5. Write an argumentative essay on the benefits of moving the state capital to Los Angeles.
6. Which of the following cities would be the best state capital beginning in year 2030:
Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, or San Francisco? Provide evidence for your
decision?
Analysis takes many forms. One is reaching understanding by perceiving useful categories (like
understanding of cognitive thinking by perceiving its six levels), or comparing and contrasting
ideas, processes and things, or even creating an outline of a reading assignment. Acquisition of
skill in analysis is important to build ability to employ thinking at the previous three levels in
ways needed to start to become an expert thinker.
Synthesis involves creating something unique from pre-existing knowledge. No two creative
products are the same. Examples of creative products include speeches, essays, artwork, music,
technological inventions and scientific testing. Synthesis done poorly is a product of novices.
Synthesis done well is a mark of expert performance, and requires thousands of hours of practice
in dealing with challenges that require synthesis.
Evaluation involves making an informed when two or more competing options where options
seem equally plausible and then supporting your decision with evidence. A novice does
evaluation poorly. Evaluation done well is the hallmark of an expert. Novices argue from
opinion, not evidence. Many of life’s most important decisions require evaluative skills.
Reflective Exercises
1. Because recall at the knowledge level is basically just memorization, comprehension, is
actually the first level of thinking. Practice your comprehension by generating
synonyms for three words you know. In doing this you are demonstrating your
understanding. For instance, for the word gigantic, you might say: huge, jumbo,
colossal, elephantine, enormous, Herculean, immense, mammoth, massive, monster, and
titan.
2. Here are six statements, classify each according to Bloom level.
CHALLENGE
I have a job offer in St Paul, Minnesota. Should I
accept it?
What is asbestos?
Distinguish between chrysotile and crocidolite
asbestos.
Why is it cold in winter and hot in summer?
Design a study that could show whether or not
common levels of indoor radon cause cancer.
y = mx + b If b=1, x=2 and y=3, what is m?
BLOOM’S LEVEL
Finally, what Bloom’s level was represented by the challenge to complete the table?
Reasoning level
Question type often sounds
like...
1. Recall
"Who ...?" or "What ...?"
2. Comprehension
” Explain.” “Predict.”
“Interpret.” “Give an
example.” “Paraphrase....”
3. Application
“Calculate.” "Solve.” “Apply.”
“Demonstrate.” “Given ___.
Use this information to….”
4. Analytical
5. Synthesis
6. Evaluation
Reasoning Skill
Involves factual information
expressed through recall &
recognition.
Involves understanding and
expressing relationships derived
from information through visual,
oral or kinesthetic means.
Involves problem-solving that
requires comprehension of the
issues and the selection and use of
appropriate skills.
“Distinguish.” “Compare” or
“Contrast” “How does ___
relate to___?”, “Why does
___.”
“Design.” “Construct.”
“Develop.” “Formulate.”
“Write a poem.” “Write a short
story…..”
Involves accurately perceiving the
nature and components of ideas and
information and articulating these
perceptions.
Involves creative use of
information and imagination to
produce an original idea or
product.
Involves a decision to make a
”Evaluate.” “Appraise.”
choice or a judgment based on
“Justify which is better.”
evidence and to assign a relative
“Evaluate ___ argument, based value to different choices as to
on established facts.” "What
being most reasonable or
if....?”
appropriate.
3. The above table is a summary of important aspects of Bloom’s Taxonomy of the
Affective Domain. Note that one can often distinguish the reasoning level by key root
words in the question or challenge.
Pick a class reading assignment from any class. It might be a chapter from a textbook or a
paper. Proceed to read the text, but compose one quiz question for each paragraph. For the
first page, write Bloom level 1 (knowledge) challenges for each paragraph on that page. On
the second page, write Bloom level 2 (comprehension) challenges and so forth, until on the
sixth page you are writing an evaluation challenge. Use the middle column of the table as
aid to your question writing.
Note (A) Your learning comprehension that results from writing a question per paragraph
and (B) the feeling that occurs in your efforts to write questions as you shift toward more
complex Bloom levels.
4. To extend your thinking, select two areas of study in one of your classes to compare and
contrast. For instance, select two novels by the same author. How are they similar?
How are they different? Select two types of government. Select two leaders with
opposing viewpoints. By doing this exercise, we often understand each more fully. A
part of understanding what something contains lies in understanding what it does not
contain.
References
Bloom, B.S. (Ed.). (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives, handbook 1: Cognitive
domain. New York, NY: Longman.
Web sites that graphically summarize Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain.
Bloom's Taxonomy (1)
Bloom's Taxonomy (2)
Bloom's Taxonomy (3)
Bloom's Taxonomy (4)
Bloom's Taxonomy (5)
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/bloom.html
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UyK_t0-202zpilPO1Rm3kokQb4Ynch2-BGuV29-nd0/edit?hl=en&pli=1#
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bloom%27s_Rose.png
http://www.cesa7.org/TDC/documents/Bloomswheelforactivestudentl
earning.pdf
http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/RevisedBlooms1.html