Taxonomy and Instructional Objectives

Cognitive Test Development

Rizqy Amelia Zein

Departemen Psikologi, Universitas Airlangga

2026-09-16

Agenda

1. Two ways of formulating a learning objective
2. Definitions of taxonomy and instructional objective
3. Bloom’s taxonomy and its revision
4. 6️⃣ levels of cognitive process
5. The knowledge dimension
6. The two-dimensional table and its link to the blueprint
7. Formulating instructional objectives
8. Verbs that cannot be observed
9. Activity: classifying instructional objectives

2️⃣ ways of formulating a learning objective

Compare the two

1. “Students understand the concept of fractions.”
2. “Students can calculate the sum of two fractions with different denominators.”

The first formulation does not name an observable behavior. “Understand” could mean anything, and there is no direct way to assess whether that objective has been met. The second formulation names a specific behavior that can be measured with a single test item.

The second formulation can be turned directly into a test item. The first cannot, not until it is first translated into a more specific form.

Definitions

Taxonomy and instructional objectives

Taxonomy

A classification system that arranges categories hierarchically, from the simplest to the most complex.

Instructional objective

A statement of what learners are expected to be able to do after a learning process, formulated as observable and measurable behavior.

These two concepts are linked: taxonomy supplies the vocabulary and structure for formulating instructional objectives at the appropriate level of cognitive complexity.

Bloom’s taxonomy and its revision

Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956)

• Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues compiled the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook I, Cognitive Domain (Bloom et al., 1956).
• Six categories, framed as nouns, arranged hierarchically: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation.
• Each level is assumed to encompass and require the level below it.

This taxonomy served as the standard reference for designing learning objectives and achievement tests for more than four decades.

The 2001 revision

• Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) revised this taxonomy together with a group of researchers in education, cognition, curriculum, and measurement.
• Krathwohl (2002) wrote a summary of this revision, which is required reading for this session.
• Check the short version here.

Two main changes

1. Categories were changed from nouns to verbs (for example, “Knowledge” became “Remember”) to emphasize that this taxonomy describes a cognitive process, not just content.
2. The order of the two highest levels was swapped: Synthesis (level 5 in the old taxonomy) became Create (level 6, the highest). The reasoning is that creating something new requires evaluation as one of its processes.
3. A second dimension was added: the knowledge dimension, separate from the cognitive process dimension.

6️⃣ levels of cognitive process

The more basic levels

Level	Definition	Example verbs
Remember	Recognizing or recalling information	identify, list, name
Understand	Explaining the meaning of information	explain, compare, summarize
Apply	Using a procedure in a new situation	calculate, apply, demonstrate

Krathwohl (2002).

The more complex levels

Level	Definition	Example verbs
Analyze	Breaking information into parts and seeing the relationships between them	differentiate, organize, relate
Evaluate	Making a judgment based on criteria	judge, compare, predict quality
Create	Assembling elements into something new	design, formulate, produce

Krathwohl (2002).

These levels are more than just difficulty labels

• A higher level does not always mean a “harder” item overall — it demands a different cognitive process.
• A remembering item can still be difficult (a rarely known fact), and an analyzing item can still be easy (a simple comparison).
• What distinguishes the levels is the type of mental process required, not the difficulty level.

The knowledge dimension

Four types of knowledge

• Factual — specific facts, terminology, details
• Conceptual — categories, principles, theories, models
• Procedural — steps, methods, techniques, criteria for when to use a given procedure
• Metacognitive — awareness and knowledge of one’s own thinking processes

Anderson & Krathwohl (2001); Krathwohl (2002).

The two-dimensional table

The revised taxonomy crosses the cognitive process dimension with the knowledge dimension, producing a 6×4 table. Each cell is a possible combination to be measured; the check marks below indicate one example combination for each type of knowledge:

	Remember	Understand	Apply	Analyze	Evaluate	Create
Factual	✓
Conceptual		✓		✓
Procedural			✓	✓	✓
Metacognitive				✓	✓	✓

Link to the blueprint

Session 2 explained that a blueprint crosses content domain with cognitive level. This table is the tool used to determine which cells are relevant to fill, and what proportion of items each should have, depending on the construct being measured.

Formulating instructional objectives

The ABCD components

Mager (1962) proposed formulating instructional objectives with three core components: Behavior, Condition, Degree. The Audience component was added later by other instructional design writers (not by Mager himself), forming the ABCD framework that is more widely known today:

Component	Question	Example
Audience	Who is learning?	5th-semester students
Behavior	What behavior is expected, stated as an observable verb?	can calculate
Condition	Under what conditions/with what tools?	without a calculator, within 2 minutes
Degree	How well/what is the success criterion?	with at least 80% accuracy

The ABCD components

Example instructional objective

“5th-semester students (A) can calculate the sum of two fractions with different denominators (B) without a calculator (C) with at least 80% accuracy (D).”

Verbs that cannot be observed

Look closely at the verbs in an objective

• Verbs such as “understand,” “know,” “realize,” or “appreciate” describe an internal state, not a directly observable behavior.
• This also applies to the names of the taxonomy levels themselves. “Understand” is the name of a category, not an operational verb ready to be used in an objective.
• To formulate a measurable objective, verbs under the “Understand” category need to be translated into operational verbs such as “explain,” “compare,” or “conclude.”

Relevance for test development

An instructional objective that does not use an operational verb is hard to translate directly into a test item. This is why the list of verbs in the taxonomy table (not the level names) serves as the practical reference when writing objectives and test items.

Activity: classifying instructional objectives

Classify each of the following statements into one of the six levels of cognitive process:

1. “Students can name three types of cognitive tests.”
2. “Students can compare achievement tests and aptitude tests based on their time orientation.”
3. “Students can put together a test blueprint for a given construct.”

Answer key

1. Remember — recalling information. (2) Analyze — even though “compare” also appears as an example verb under both Understand and Evaluate, the process required here (dissecting two concepts based on certain criteria) fits Analyze better. The same verb can sit at different levels, depending on the cognitive process actually required. (3) Create — assembling elements (proportions, items, format) into a new product.

Summary

1. Taxonomy is a hierarchical classification system; an instructional objective is a statement of measurable behavior that serves as a learning target.
2. Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) used six noun categories; the Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) revision turned them into verbs and swapped the order of the two highest levels.
3. This revision added the knowledge dimension (factual, conceptual, procedural, metacognitive), forming a two-dimensional table together with the cognitive process dimension.
4. This two-dimensional table is the tool used when building the blueprint in Session 2 and in your project.
5. A measurable instructional objective is formulated with operational verbs (the ABCD model, rooted in Mager’s 1962 Behavior-Condition-Degree), not verbs that describe a learner’s internal state.

For Session 4

Coming up: achievement tests

Session 4 applies this taxonomy directly to achievement tests, the type of cognitive test most closely tied to specific instructional objectives and learning material.

Thank you!😊

Any questions?

• amelia.zein@psikologi.unair.ac.id
• https://rameliaz.github.io/
• @rameliaz
• @rameliaz
• @rameliaz

These slides were prepared using and Quarto with a template from UNAIR Theme.

References

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.

Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I, Cognitive domain. David McKay Company.

Krathwohl, D. R. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy: An overview. Theory Into Practice, 41(4), 212–218. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1477405?seq=1

Mager, R. F. (1962). Preparing instructional objectives. Fearon Publishers.