Anderson’s

Taxonomy
Assesment in ELT
History of
Taxonomy
 1940s 1956 2001
In early 1940’s, the cognitive
researchers and psychologists had
stated, based on cognitive and human
information processing theories, that a
human’s mind applies different mental
processes while he or she
manipulates, develops, insights,
stores, and retrieves information
(Gagne, 1977; Guilford, 1956;
Lindsay& Norman, 1977; Piaget, 1952;
Rothkoph, 1966; Rumelhart, & Ortony,
1977; Wittrock, 1974).
Benjamin Bloom Lorin Anderson
published Bloom’s revised Bloom’s
Taxonomy. taxonomy.
 What is
Anderson’s
Taxonomy?
 Anderson's Taxonomy is a revision of Bloom's Cognitive Taxonomy, with
three important differences. Anderson is a former student of Bloom, updated and
revised the taxonomy reflecting relevance to 21 st century work for both students and
teachers as he said (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001).
Anderson changed the taxonomy in three broad categories: terminology,
structure and emphasis Anderson modified the original terminology by changing
Bloom's categories from nouns to verbs.
 Why Anderson
revised the Bloom’s
Taxonomy?
This revised taxonomy attempts to correct some of the problems
with the original taxonomy. This is important because it affects
the way we demonstrate these abilities as things we perform.
Anderson revised Bloom's taxonomy to be more adaptive to our
current age by proposing another taxonomy that will meet
curriculum designers, teachers, and students needs better than
the Bloom's one.
 Differences between
Anderson’s and Bloom’s
Taxonomy
There are three important differences

1. Bloom uses nouns, and

Anderson uses verbs.

2. The Anderson taxonomy

introduces the idea of
creativity, and puts it at the
very top, the highest form of
learning.

3. There is some relatively minor

reshuffling of taxonomic levels.
Bloom's and Anderson's taxonomies are so interwoven they are sometimes presented
as the same. Actually, Anderson's is sometimes referred to inaccurately as Bloom's. 
 Bloom’s Taxonomy
1. Knowledge: Remembering or retrieving
previously learned material.
2. Comprehension: The ability to grasp or
construct meaning from material.
3. Application: The ability to use learned material,
or to implement material in new and concrete
situations.
4. Analysis: The ability to break down or
distinguish the parts of material into its
components so that its organizational structure
may be better understood.
Anderson’s Taxonomy
1. Remembering: Retrieving, recalling, or
recognizing knowledge from memory.
Remembering is when memory is used to produce
definitions, facts, or lists, or recite or retrieve
material.
2. Understanding:  Constructing meaning from
different types of functions be they written or
graphic messages activities like interpreting,
exemplifying, classifying, summarizing,
inferring, comparing, and explaining.
3. Applying:  Carrying out or using a procedure
through executing, or implementing. Applying
related and refers to situations where learned
material is used through products like models,
presentations, interviews or simulations.
4. Analyzing:  Breaking material or concepts into
parts, determining how the parts relate or
interrelate to one another or to an overall structure
or purpose.
 Bloom’s Taxonomy
5. Synthesis: The ability to put parts together to
form a coherent or unique new whole.
6. Evaluation: The ability to judge, check, and
even critique the value of material for a given
purpose.
Anderson’s Taxonomy
5. Evaluating:  Making judgments based on
criteria and standards through checking and
critiquing.
6. Creating: Putting elements together to form a
coherent or functional
whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern
or structure through generating, planning, or
producing. Creating requires users to put parts
together in a new way or synthesize parts into
something new and different a new form or
product.  This process is the most difficult mental
function in the new taxonomy.
This one used to be #5 in Bloom's known as
synthesis.
Knowledge of dimension
 Teachers can better and more easily assess how student’s cognitive
processes work at each level of taxonomy.

  The Cognitive Process Dimension

Cognition Remember Understand Apply Analyze Evaluate Create
Factual List Summarize Classify Order Rank Compile
Conceptual Describe Interpret Experiment Explain Assess Plan
Procedural Tabulate Predict Calculate Differentiate Conclude Compose
Appropriate
Metacognitive Execute Construct Achieve Action Actualize
use
Conclusion
Anderson revised the Bloom’s taxonomy so that it can be more
adaptive in the current era. It is revised so that it can helped
students to developed thinking and skills in order to make them
good thinkers, creators, discoverers, builders, and critical
thinkers.

The taxonomy that we learned all this time that we known as

“Revised Bloom’s taxonomy” or some people also called it
simply Bloom’s Taxonomy is actually Anderson’s Taxonomy.
Both of these taxonomies are related with each other. After
learning about Anderson’s Taxonomy, it is better for us not to get
confused and called Anderson’s taxonomy as Bloom’s Taxonomy
anymore.