INSTRUMENTATION
OF
BLOOM’S
AND BRATHWOHL’S TAXONOMIES
FOR
THE WRITING
OF
EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES
NEWTON
S.
METFESSEL
AND
WILLIAM
B.
MICHAEL
University
of
Southern
California
.4ND
DONALD A.
KIRSNER
System Development Corporation
During the past six
or
eight years an increased amount of attention has been
given to the statement of educational objectives in behavioral terms both to facili-
tate the evaluat.ion of educational programs and to improve the validity of tshe
measures and scales utilized in the evaluation process (Metfessel
&
Michael, 1967;
Michael
&
Metfessel, 1967). Although set up
as
a
programmed learning text,
Mager’s (1962)
Preparing Instructional Objectives
has been one of the most useful
guides
to
teachers and specialists in curriculum who have sought help in stating the
desired outcomes of inst,ruction in behavioral languagein describing the kinds of
specific and relatively terminal behaviors which t,he learner will be capable of ex-
hibiting subsequent. to his exposure to
a
program of instruction. Another useful
source has been the volume edited by Lindvall (1964) who, in col1aborat)ion with
Nardozza and Fclton (Lindvall, Nardozza,
&
Felton, 1964) not only prepared his
own
chapt,er concerned mit,h the importance
of
specific objectives in curricular de-
velopment, but, also enlisted the aid
of
several distinguished educat,ors, e.g., Krath-
wohl (1964) and Tyler (1964) wit,h specialized interests in evaluation. Such efforts
have essentially involved a fusion of curriculum design with the evaluation process
in that curricular planning is described in t,ernis of behavioral objectives that are
necessary
for
the construction of valid tests and scales. The taxonomies provide
the required model necessary to furnish meaningful evidence regarding the attain-
ment of desired behavioral changes.
Although Iirathwohl (1964) related the taxonomy of educat’ional objectives
in both the cognitive (Bloom, Englehart, Furst, Hill,
&
Krathwohl, 1956) and the
affective (I<rat,hwohl, Bloom,
&
Masia, 1964) domains to curriculum building, he
was able
to
present’ only
a
limited number
of
concrete illustrations, some
of
which
Mager would probably challenge because of their relative lack of specificity. Ad-
mittedly, Krathwohl has made an important and helpful start in relating objectives
to a meaningful and rather well-known conceptual framework. However, the
writers believe that there exist,s a need for an instrumentation of the taxonomy of
educational objectives within both the cognitive and affective domains-that is, a
more clear-cut description of how the taxonomy can be implement.ed in the school
setting. The approach utilized was the development of
behaviorally oriented
in-
finitives which, when combined with given objects, would form
a
basis for meaning-
ful, cohesive, and operational statements.
INSTRUMENTATION
To facilitate the formulation of statements
of
specific behavioral objectives
within t.he framework
of
Bloom’s taxonomy, the writers have included a table made
up of three columns. The
first
column contains the taxonomic classification identi-
fied by both code number and terminology employed in Bloom’s (Bloom et al.,
1956) taxonomy. The entries in the second column consist of appropriate infinitives