Complete thesis - Murdoch University

of the material. Learning objectives at this level include: recognise unstated assumptions,logical fallacies in reasoning, distinguish between facts and inferences, evaluaterelevance of data, analyse organisational structure of a worksynthesis - combining elements into something new, generalising from given knowledge,organising and relating knowledge from several areas, predicting, drawing conclusions.Learning outcomes stress creative behaviours with major emphasis on the formulationof new patterns or structureevaluation - exercise judgement about value, compare and discriminate between ideas, evaluatedata. Learning outcomes are the highest in the cognitive hierarchy because theycontain elements of all other categories plus conscious value judgements based on clearlydefined internal or external criteria.(Bloom et al, 1956; Carneson et al, 2000; McKenna and Bull, 1999)Research over the succeeding years has generally confirmed that the first four levels area true hierarchy, with the lowest three levels considered as foundational thinking (Ryanand Frangenheim, 2000), used as the basis for higher learning levels. However, research ismixed on the relationship of the highest two outcomes: they may be reversed or equallydifficult activities. One example of the former is the revision to the taxonomy undertaken byAnderson and Krathwohl (2001). This revision maps a specific verb tag to each level (so that‘Knowledge’ becomes ‘Remember’) and swaps the positions of levels five and six (so that‘Evaluate’ (formally Bloom’s level 6 ‘Evaluation’ precedes ‘Create’ (formally ‘Synthesis’).The argument presented for this is that evaluation is a necessary step which precedes anygenerative process.An alternative approach to Bloom’s Taxonomy proposes ‘Synthesis’ and ‘Evaluation’ as twotypes of thinking with much in common (Bloom’s lower four levels) but undertaken for adifferent purpose. Huitt (1998) summarises these as equating to creative (synthesis) andcritical (evaluation) thinking. This equivalent-but-different view does not subsume creativethinking under critical thinking (as Bloom’s original hierarchy does) but identifies them asseparate, with their own standards of excellence. Table 2.14 provides a comparison betweenthe most common competency taxonomies.While Bloom describes learning outcomes in a single dimension, other researchers acknowledgethe difference between to content and the actions that may be performed on it. This isaddresses either by the development of an alternate taxonomy (Merrill, 1973) or an extensionto an established one.65