Bloom's Taxonomy: A Complete Guide to the Six Levels of Learning
A teacher writes a learning objective: “Students will understand the water cycle.” But what does understanding mean in practice? Does it mean students can define evaporation, explain the process to a classmate, predict what happens when temperatures rise, or design an experiment to test evaporation rates? The word understand covers all of these possibilities and none of them with precision.
Bloom’s Taxonomy, first published in 1956 by Benjamin Bloom and a committee of educational psychologists, provides a framework for categorizing educational objectives by cognitive complexity. The revised version, published in 2001 by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl, updated the taxonomy for contemporary educational practice. It remains one of the most widely used and practical tools in curriculum design, assessment development, and instructional planning.
The Revised Taxonomy
The revised Bloom’s Taxonomy organizes cognitive processes into six levels of increasing complexity, from basic recall to creative production.
Remember
Remembering involves retrieving relevant knowledge from long-term memory. Verbs associated with this level include recognize, recall, identify, list, name, and define. A remember-level objective might ask students to “list the three branches of the United States government” or “identify the main characters in a novel.”
This level is the foundation of learning. Students cannot analyze or evaluate material they cannot recall. However, instruction that stops at remembering produces surface learning that does not transfer. Many standardized tests disproportionately assess this level, leading to the criticism that they measure shallow knowledge.
Understand
Understanding involves constructing meaning from instructional messages. Students demonstrate understanding when they explain ideas, summarize texts, interpret data, or compare concepts. Verbs include explain, summarize, interpret, classify, and compare. An example objective: “Explain how photosynthesis converts light energy into chemical energy.”
This level represents a significant step beyond recall. A student who can explain a concept in their own words understands it at a deeper level than one who can only recite a definition. Most classroom instruction targets this level, though assessment often fails to distinguish it from remembering.
Apply
Applying involves carrying out or using a procedure in a given situation. Verbs include execute, implement, solve, use, and demonstrate. Application problems require students to use knowledge in new situations. An example: “Solve a quadratic equation using the quadratic formula” or “Apply the principles of supply and demand to predict the effects of a price ceiling.”
Transfer — the ability to apply knowledge in new contexts — is a crucial educational goal. Research consistently shows that transfer does not happen automatically; students need practice applying knowledge in varied contexts.
Analyze
Analyzing involves breaking material into its constituent parts and determining how the parts relate to one another and to the overall structure. Verbs include differentiate, organize, attribute, compare, deconstruct, and find. An example: “Analyze how the author uses foreshadowing to create suspense in the first chapter.”
Analysis marks the transition to higher-order thinking. It requires students to think critically about the structure and organization of knowledge rather than just accepting it as given.
Evaluate
Evaluating involves making judgments based on criteria and standards. Verbs include check, critique, judge, justify, argue, and defend. Students evaluate when they assess the credibility of sources, critique arguments, justify decisions, or appraise the quality of work.
Evaluation requires students to develop and apply criteria, weigh evidence, and make reasoned judgments. In an era of information overload and misinformation, evaluation skills are increasingly essential. Students need to evaluate the credibility of online sources, assess the quality of arguments, and make informed decisions.
Create
Creating involves putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole. Verbs include generate, plan, produce, design, construct, and invent. Creating requires students to synthesize knowledge and skills to produce something original. An example: “Design an experiment to test the effects of fertilizer on plant growth.”
Creating represents the highest level of cognitive complexity. It requires all lower levels — students must remember relevant knowledge, understand principles, apply procedures, analyze constraints, and evaluate options — to produce something new.
The Knowledge Dimension
The revised taxonomy adds a second dimension: the type of knowledge being learned. Factual knowledge is basic elements students must know — terminology, facts, details. Conceptual knowledge is the interrelationships among basic elements — categories, principles, theories, models. Procedural knowledge is how to do something — skills, techniques, methods. Metacognitive knowledge is knowledge about cognition and awareness of one’s own thinking.
The intersection of the cognitive process dimension and the knowledge dimension creates a table of twenty-four cells. Each learning objective can be classified by both what type of knowledge it targets and what cognitive process it requires. For example, “explain the water cycle” targets conceptual knowledge at the understand level, while “design an experiment to test evaporation rates” targets procedural knowledge at the create level.
Writing Effective Learning Objectives
The most practical application of Bloom’s Taxonomy is writing clear, measurable learning objectives that communicate expectations to students. An effective objective includes a specific verb from the taxonomy, the content or skill to be learned, and the context or condition of performance. For example, a remember-level objective might read: “Students will be able to list the stages of mitosis in chronological order.” A create-level objective might read: “Students will design an experiment to test the effects of varying light intensity on photosynthetic rate.”
The ABCD model provides a useful framework for writing objectives: Audience (who), Behavior (what the learner will do), Condition (under what circumstances), and Degree (to what standard). When objectives are written using this structure with Bloom’s verbs, they become powerful communication tools that align instruction, learning activities, and assessment.
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s Taxonomy has three primary applications in education.
Designing Learning Objectives
The taxonomy helps educators write precise, measurable learning objectives. Instead of vague verbs like understand or learn, objectives use specific verbs from the taxonomy. Well-written objectives communicate clear expectations to students and provide a basis for assessment design. A formative assessment guide can help align ongoing checks for understanding with taxonomy levels.
Aligning Instruction and Assessment
The taxonomy reveals misalignments between instruction and assessment. A teacher who lectures at the understand level but tests at the remember level is under-challenging students. A teacher who tests at the analyze level but only provides instruction at the remember level is setting students up to fail. The taxonomy provides a common language for ensuring curriculum, instruction, and assessment are aligned.
Promoting Higher-Order Thinking
The taxonomy reminds educators to push beyond lower levels. Research consistently shows that instruction focused on higher-order thinking produces better outcomes than instruction limited to recall and comprehension. The taxonomy provides a roadmap for scaffolding student thinking from simple to complex.
Criticisms and Limitations
Bloom’s Taxonomy has been criticized for implying a strict hierarchy where higher levels depend on lower levels. In practice, thinking is often nonlinear — creating can involve remembering, and evaluating may spark new understanding. The taxonomy is best treated as a useful framework rather than a rigid hierarchy.
Another criticism is that the taxonomy focuses on cognitive processes but does not address the content or context of learning. Two objectives at the analyze level could be dramatically different in difficulty and importance depending on the subject matter.
Despite these limitations, Bloom’s Taxonomy remains a valuable tool for educators. It provides a shared vocabulary for discussing cognitive complexity, prompts educators to consider higher-order thinking, and helps align objectives, instruction, and assessment. The intelligence theories that inform educational psychology provide complementary frameworks for understanding how students think and learn.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should every lesson target the highest taxonomy levels? No. Lower levels are foundations for higher levels and should not be skipped. Students cannot evaluate something they do not understand or apply procedures they cannot recall. Effective curriculum spirals through the taxonomy, building from lower to higher levels and providing opportunities for students to operate at all levels appropriate to their development.
How does Bloom’s Taxonomy relate to constructivism? Bloom’s Taxonomy is compatible with constructivism but not identical to it. Constructivism describes how learning happens; Bloom’s Taxonomy describes what learning looks like at different complexity levels. Constructivist approaches emphasize active construction of knowledge, which is most relevant at higher taxonomy levels where students must analyze, evaluate, and create.
Can Bloom’s Taxonomy be used with young children? Yes, though the complexity is adapted to developmental level. Young children can create simple stories, evaluate whether a solution works, analyze patterns, and apply knowledge to new situations. The content and expectations are age-appropriate, but the cognitive processes apply across development.
What is the difference between the original and revised taxonomy? The original taxonomy had nouns as category labels (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation). The revised taxonomy changed to verb forms (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create) to emphasize that these are active processes. The revised taxonomy also swapped synthesis and evaluation — creating is now the highest level — and added the knowledge dimension.