When creating courses for a learning and development program, following scientifically proven industry best practices for knowledge retention increases the chances of success. One well-known approach is to break the material down into steps and slowly add information as each level is reached. In 1956, an educational psychiatrist named Benjamin Bloom created a system that he called Bloom’s taxonomy.
In this blog, we will review what this system is and why it remains relevant today for anyone creating training courses.
Key takeaways
- Bloom’s Taxonomy has six cognitive levels — remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create — ordered from basic recall to complex creation.
- Specific verbs make objectives measurable. Words like define, demonstrate, and design produce assessable goals; vague terms like “understand the topic” do not.
- Most corporate training stops at “remember” and “understand.” Building real capability requires objectives at the apply, analyze, and create levels too.
- Bloom’s has three domains, not just one: cognitive (thinking), affective (feelings/values), and psychomotor (physical skills).
- Matching objectives to job requirements improves knowledge transfer — when training targets the same cognitive level a job actually requires, learners are more likely to apply it at work.
- AI tools like LEAi can automate Bloom-aligned objective writing, helping teams scale consistent, measurable training content faster.
What is Bloom’s taxonomy?
Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical framework for classifying educational learning objectives by cognitive complexity. Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist, developed it in 1956 to give educators a shared vocabulary for describing what learners should be able to do, not just what they should know.
The original version used nouns (knowledge, comprehension, application). In 2001, Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl revised the model to use verbs (remember, understand, apply) because verbs describe action — what a learner can actually do with information — rather than just naming a category of knowledge. The hierarchy itself didn’t change; the language became more precise and more useful for writing objectives.
What is Bloom’s used for?
Bloom’s taxonomy is a valuable tool in course creation, guiding learners from the foundational stages of recall and comprehension to evaluation and innovation. This framework also helps in the design of assessments by aligning them with the desired level of proficiency based on the learning objectives. Specifically, Bloom’s taxonomy is used for:
- Curriculum Development: Structuring the content and skills learners need to master. For example, in basic, introductory courses, the emphasis might be on assessing the fundamental layers of the taxonomy. In advanced, higher-level courses, the focus will shift to evaluating learners’ competencies.
- Lesson Planning: Ensuring that lessons cover a range of cognitive skills. For example, a lesson might start with recall questions and progress to tasks requiring evaluation or creation.
- Assessment Design: Categorizing test and assignment questions on the level of the required cognitive skills.
- Writing Learning Objectives — setting clear, measurable statements of what a learner should know or do by the end of a course.
- Encouraging Higher-Order Thinking: Ensuring that the training includes more tasks that require analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
What are the three domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy?
Within Bloom’s Taxonomy there are three categories or domains of learning:
| Domain | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Cognitive | Intellectual skills: knowledge retention, application, pattern recognition, problem-solving |
| Affective | Feelings, values, and attitudes: how learners develop appreciation for or commitment to a subject |
| Psychomotor | Physical skills: coordination, reflexes, fine motor control, and physical technique |
Within each domain, levels build on one another — a learner who can perform a higher-level skill can generally perform the lower-level ones underneath it.
What are the 6 levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy cognitive domain?
The cognitive domain — the version of Bloom’s most commonly used in training — has six levels, from easiest to hardest: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create.
| Level | Definition | Example verbs |
|---|---|---|
| Remember | Recall facts, terms, and basic concepts | recall, identify, list, define, name |
| Understand | Explain ideas or concepts in your own words | describe, summarize, interpret, explain, discuss |
| Apply | Use learned information in a new situation | apply, solve, demonstrate, implement, use |
| Analyze | Break information into parts and see relationships | compare, categorize, distinguish, investigate |
| Evaluate | Justify a decision or judgment based on criteria | assess, judge, defend, critique, recommend |
| Create | Combine elements to produce something new | design, compose, develop, formulate, invent |
Extended verb list by cognitive level
Below is a more comprehensive Bloom’s taxonomy verb chart from the University of Arkansas that provides verbs for each learning level in the cognitive domain. Use these to help to create action-oriented learning objectives during your course.
Remember | Understand | Apply | Analyze | Evaluate | Create |
Cite | Add | Acquire | Analyze | Appraise | Abstract |
How to write a learning objective with Bloom’s verbs
Formula: After [training], learners will be able to [Bloom’s verb] + [specific skill or content].
Example: “After completing this module, learners will be able to identify the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.” (Remember level)
Avoid vague verbs like understand, know, or learn about — they can’t be observed or measured. A reviewer can’t verify whether someone “understands” something, but they can verify whether someone can identify, demonstrate, or design something.
What are the levels of the affective domain?
The affective domain covers feelings, values, and attitudes, and has five levels from simplest to most complex:
| Level | Definition | Example verbs |
|---|---|---|
| Receiving | Being willing to listen and pay attention | listens, follows, observes, attends |
| Responding | Actively participating and engaging | answers, discusses, questions, contributes |
| Valuing | Attaching worth or importance to something learned | accepts, demonstrates, justifies, respects |
| Organization | Comparing and prioritizing values into a system | classifies, arranges, integrates, relates |
| Characterization | Consistently acting according to internalized values | influences, exemplifies, maintains, performs |
What are the levels of the psychomotor domain?
The psychomotor domain covers physical movement and motor-skill coordination, and has six levels:
| Level | Definition | Example verbs |
|---|---|---|
| Set | Being ready to act | prepares, arranges, reacts, displays |
| Guided response | Practicing a new skill through trial and error | imitates, attempts, copies, reproduces |
| Mechanism | Performing a skill with growing confidence | assembles, constructs, organizes, fixes |
| Complex overt response | Performing a skill fluently with minimal effort | performs, operates, solves, dismantles |
| Adaptation | Modifying a known skill for a new context | modifies, revises, rearranges, alters |
| Origination | Creating an entirely new skill or method | designs, creates, formulates, builds |
Why is Bloom’s Taxonomy important for training and development?
Bloom’s Taxonomy is important because it forces training programs to target the cognitive level a job actually requires, instead of defaulting to recall-based content that doesn’t transfer to real performance. Three concrete benefits:
- It makes objectives measurable. A verb-based objective (“demonstrate,” “analyze,” “design”) can be assessed; a vague one (“understand the topic”) cannot.
- It prevents training from staying too shallow. Many corporate training programs stop at “remember” or “understand” — Bloom’s makes the gap visible and gives a path to apply, analyze, and create-level content.
- It improves knowledge transfer. When a learning objective matches the cognitive level required on the job, learners are more likely to apply what they learned at work, not just pass a quiz.
Not every course needs all six levels. Lower-stakes or introductory content might only need the bottom three levels (remember, understand, apply), while training on critical or complex skills should be built through all six so learners reach full competency.
How do you apply Bloom’s Taxonomy to an existing training program?
To evaluate or redesign a course using Bloom’s Taxonomy:
- Audit existing objectives. Identify which cognitive level each current objective and assessment question actually targets.
- Check the verbs. Replace vague verbs (“understand,” “know,” “learn about”) with measurable Bloom’s verbs from the tables above.
- Map objectives to job requirements. If the job requires analysis or judgment, the training objectives should too — not just recall.
- Sequence content by level. Start with remember/understand content, then build toward apply, analyze, evaluate, and create.
- Align assessments to the objective’s level. A “create”-level objective needs a project or design task, not a multiple-choice quiz.
How LEAi works with Bloom’s Taxonomy
LEAi, LearnExperts’ AI-powered course creation tool, automatically generates Bloom-aligned learning objectives, content, and test questions so instructional designers don’t have to write them by hand. It analyzes learning objectives and section headers to confirm they’re verb-based, ensuring the resulting course follows Bloom’s Taxonomy structure and produces measurable outcomes.
Key features:
- Imports existing documents, blogs, and internal content to automatically generate learning objectives and course content
- Applies instructional design best practices through LearnAdvisor guidance
- Automatically generates test questions, exams and interactive elements from imported content
- Repurposes content across multiple modules and courses
- Translates content into multiple languages
- Builds short-form courses through one-click microlearning
Let LEAi help you build great training
FAQ
Is Bloom's Taxonomy still relevant today?
Yes. Despite being created in 1956, Bloom’s Taxonomy remains one of the most widely used frameworks in both education and corporate training because it gives instructional designers a simple, universal way to write measurable objectives and sequence content by difficulty.
What's the difference between the original and revised Bloom's Taxonomy?
The original 1956 version used nouns (knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation). Anderson and Krathwohl’s 2001 revision changed these to verbs (remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, create) and swapped the order of the top two levels, placing “create” above “evaluate.” The underlying hierarchy is the same; the revised version is more commonly used today.
What verbs should I avoid when writing learning objectives?
Avoid verbs that can’t be observed or measured, such as understand, know, learn, or appreciate. Replace them with specific Bloom’s verbs — for example, replace “understand the policy” with “summarize the key requirements of the policy.”
Do all training courses need to reach the "create" level?
No. Lower-priority or introductory content can stop at the remember, understand, and apply levels. Critical skills and complex job functions should be trained through all six levels so learners reach full competency, not just familiarity.
What are the three domains of Bloom's Taxonomy?
Cognitive (intellectual skills), affective (feelings and values), and psychomotor (physical skills). Most corporate training focuses on the cognitive domain, though the affective domain is often relevant for culture, compliance, and values-based training.
