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Bloom's taxonomy is a framework for categorizing educational goals, developed by a committee of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom in 1956. It was first introduced in the publication Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. The taxonomy divides learning objectives into three broad domains: cognitive (knowledge-based), affective (emotion-based), and psychomotor (action-based), each with a hierarchy of skills and abilities. These domains are used by educators to structure curricula, assessments, and teaching methods to foster different types of learning.

The cognitive domain, the most widely recognized component of the taxonomy, was originally divided into six levels: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. In 2001, this taxonomy was revised, renaming and reordering the levels as Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. This domain focuses on intellectual skills and the development of critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.

The affective domain addresses attitudes, emotions, and feelings, moving from basic awareness and responsiveness to more complex values and beliefs. This domain outlines five levels: Receiving, Responding, Valuing, Organizing, and Characterizing.

The psychomotor domain, less elaborated by Bloom's original team, pertains to physical skills and the use of motor functions. Subsequent educators, such as Elizabeth Simpson, further developed this domain, outlining levels of skill acquisition from simple perceptions to the origination of new movements.

Bloom's taxonomy has become a widely adopted tool in education, influencing instructional design, assessment strategies, and learning outcomes across various disciplines. Despite its broad application, the taxonomy has also faced criticism, particularly regarding the hierarchical structure of cognitive skills and its implications for teaching and assessment practices.

The publication of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives followed a series of conferences from 1949 to 1953, which were designed to improve communication between educators on the design of curricula and examinations.^[1] The models were named after Benjamin Bloom, who chaired the committee of educators that devised the taxonomy. He also edited the first volume of the standard text, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals.^[2][3]

The first volume of the taxonomy, Handbook I: Cognitive^[2] was published in 1956, and in 1964 the second volume Handbook II: Affective was published.^{[4][5][6][7][8]} A revised version of the taxonomy for the cognitive domain was created in 2001.^[9]

In the 1956 original version of the taxonomy, the cognitive domain is divided into six levels of objectives.^[10] In the 2001 revised edition of Bloom's taxonomy, the levels were renamed, and the top two reordered: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create.^[11]

• Knowledge: Recognizing or recalling facts, terms, basic concepts, or answers without necessarily understanding their meaning.
• Comprehension: Demonstrating an understanding of facts and ideas by organizing and summarizing information.
• Application: Using acquired knowledge to solve problems in new or unfamiliar situations.
• Analysis: Breaking down information into parts to understand relationships, motives, or causes.
• Synthesis: Building a new whole by combining elements or creating new meaning.
• Evaluation: Making judgments about information, based on set criteria or standards.

Skills in the affective domain describe the way people react emotionally and their ability to feel other living things' pain or joy. Affective objectives typically target the awareness and growth in attitudes, emotion, and feelings.

There are five levels in the affective domain, moving through the lowest-order processes to the highest:

• Receiving: The lowest level; the student passively pays attention. Without this level, no learning can occur. Receiving is about the student's memory and recognition as well.
• Responding: The student actively participates in the learning process. Not only attends to a stimulus, but the student also reacts in some way.
• Valuing: The student attaches a value to an object, phenomenon, or piece of information. The student associates a value or some values to the knowledge they acquired.
• Organizing: The student can put together different values, information, and ideas and accommodate them within their own schema. The student is comparing, relating, and elaborating on what has been learned.
• Characterizing: At this level, the student tries to build abstract knowledge.