A Critical Approach to the Inclusion of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in Active Skills for Reading: Book 1

Abstract

Bloom’s Taxonomy was produced in 1956 by the educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom with the aim of fostering higher order thinking skills in education. In time, the original taxonomy was revisited by applying some changes. This up to date taxonomy mirrors a more active style of cognition and is possibly more precise. The revised one developed the practicality of the taxonomy by employing action words. There are six steps of cognitive domain in the revised version, the levels of which are conceptually different. These are remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating in the revised version and they are beneficial in forming learning outcomes since specific verbs are particularly suitable for each level. Accordingly, this paper focuses on exploring how the revised Bloom’s taxonomy is contained in the reading questions of an EFL reading course book. Therefore, two research questions were promoted to respond to the cognitive skills in the revised taxonomy. The first research question aims at evaluating the lower level while the second one hints on the higher cognition level. The analyzed EFL reading course book was inquired through descriptive content analysis method. The results of the study displayed that the assessed reading course book lacks the higher level cognitive skills underlined in the revised Bloom’s taxonomy. Thus, related assumptions have been produced to suggest how the reading course books which are being produced or will be produced should refer to the revised Bloom’s taxonomy while assessing reading comprehension.