The Truth Behind Bloom's Taxonomy

The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives aka Bloom's Taxonomy is a classification system created by college examiners and led by Dr. Benjamin Bloom in 1956. Its purpose was to classify educational objectives for test items that can be exchangeable among educators. There were many forces that inspire Bloom's epiphany at the American Psychology Association Convention of 1948 to gather with colleagues and propose the idea. Turns out, illiteracy was rampant at the beginning of World War II, and teacher shortages were high due to the need of workers to support the war effort. The passing of GI Bill increased college enrollments exponentially creating a need to expedite the creation and validation of test items.

1945 Millions of GIs Return Home

World War II ends in September of 1945 and with the funding support of the Servicemen Readjustment Act passed the previous year, it was estimated that 53 percent of college students were veterans.

1956 Initial Concerns From The Authors

Educators were not expected to substitute their ability to come up with curriculum design and objectives with the taxonomy.

There was some concern expressed in the early meetings that the availability of the taxonomy might tend to abort the thinking and planning of teachers with regard to curriculum' particularly if teachers merely selected what they believed to be desirable objectives from the list provided in the taxonomy (p. 5).

2001 A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy is Published

Dr. Lorin Anderson, et al. were tasked with revising the original taxonomy to update it with the advances in cognitive psychology research for the past 40+ years. This means any book published after 2001 that does not refer to the revision is misguiding readers.

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The latest episode of StyleLearn Origins discovers the truth behind the most cited, least read book in education.