Understanding Bloom's Taxonomy: A Handy Tool for Effective Learning Outcomes

At Pukeko Learning Solutions, we rely on various models to design and develop effective training programs. One such model is Bloom's Taxonomy. As the famous statistician George E. P. Box once said, "All models are wrong, but some are useful". This quote perfectly sums up our approach to using Bloom's Taxonomy in our work.

What is Bloom's taxonomy?

Bloom's Taxonomy is a way to classify educational learning objectives. It was first introduced by Benjamin Bloom in 1956 and has since become a popular tool in education. Although it's a bit debated now, the popular version of the taxonomy is divided into six levels: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyse, Evaluate, and Create. The levels represent different stages of cognitive skills, from basic recall of facts to higher-order thinking skills.

Why is it useful?

Bloom's Taxonomy is a great way to develop clear and measurable learning outcomes. It helps structure training programs so that learners not only acquire knowledge but also apply it effectively in real-world scenarios. This is particularly important when collaborating with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to agree on the desired outcomes of a training program. Passionate SMEs often want to impart a great deal of knowledge, which is great, but it’s often not quite the right approach to training. We often use this tool to explain that knowledge is just the first step, and if we don’t include the higher levels of thinking (such as application) then we will fall short. And in fact, often when we bring a focus onto higher levels, we end up including less knowledge, and more action overall.

A practical example

Let's take a health and safety course as an example. At the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy, we might aim for learners to recognise a fire hazard (Understand). However, the ultimate goal is for them to take appropriate action in the event of a fire (Apply). But we don't stop there! We also want them to think about different fire scenarios to determine the best course of action (Analyse), judge the effectiveness of their response (Evaluate), and perhaps even contribute to a new fire safety plan for their workplace (Create).

Benefits for evaluation

The benefit of having well-defined outcomes is not just at the design stage, but also at the evaluation stage. For every learning outcome agreed on, we can work towards developing some kind of evaluation for that outcome. Some evaluation measures are classic tools like assessments, but some are measures of real-life behaviour, like the number of reports of near misses in a health and safety register, or the number of customer complaints.

So next time you have a project we can assist you with, don’t be surprised if one of our first questions is “What are the learning outcomes?” If you don’t yet have them clear, we might bring out this model to help us design some great ones!