A Preliminary Blooms Taxonomy Assessment Of End-Of-Chapter Problems In Business School Textbooks

Abstract

This article examines textbook problems used in a sampling of some of the most common core courses found in schools of business to ascertain what level of learning, as defined by Blooms Taxonomy, is required to provide a correct answer. A set of working definitions based on Blooms Taxonomy (Bloom & Krathwohl, 1956) was developed for the six different levels of the taxonomy. Because the course credit model relies so heavily on textbooks, the end of chapter problems for a leading text book in eight traditional business disciplines were evaluated. The initial findings indicate that the vast majority of end of chapter problems examined only required students to function at Level 1 (Knowledge) or Level 2 (Comprehension). While preliminary in nature, these data suggest the need for the use of other methods to challenge the student to think on higher cognitive levels.