Bloom's Taxonomy & SOLO Taxonomy
Subject: General Pedagogy | Topic: Bloom's Taxonomy & SOLO Taxonomy
For TLT, ECT, PST, JEST & All Competitive Exams
When teachers plan lessons and design questions, they need a framework to understand how deeply a student is thinking and learning. Two of the most important frameworks used in education for this purpose are Bloom's Taxonomy and the SOLO Taxonomy. Both are frequently and repeatedly tested in the General Pedagogy portion of TLT, ECT, PST, and JEST exams, and students often confuse the two, so this topic focuses on clear differences between them.
What is Bloom's Taxonomy?
Bloom's Taxonomy was developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956, and later revised in 2001 by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl. It is a hierarchical classification of educational learning objectives, arranged from the simplest to the most complex level of thinking. It is used mainly to design learning objectives, lesson plans, and exam questions.
Bloom's Taxonomy (Revised) — Six Levels
Six Levels of Bloom's Taxonomy (Revised, Lowest to Highest)
| Level | Description | Action Words |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Remembering | Recalling facts and basic concepts | Define, List, Name, Recall |
| 2. Understanding | Explaining ideas or concepts in one's own words | Explain, Describe, Summarize |
| 3. Applying | Using information in new but similar situations | Apply, Demonstrate, Solve |
| 4. Analyzing | Breaking information into parts to explore relationships | Compare, Contrast, Analyze |
| 5. Evaluating | Justifying a decision or judging value based on criteria | Judge, Critique, Justify |
| 6. Creating | Producing new or original work by combining ideas | Design, Construct, Create |
What is SOLO Taxonomy?
SOLO Taxonomy stands for Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes. It was developed by John Biggs and Kevin Collis in 1982. Unlike Bloom's Taxonomy, which classifies types of thinking objectives, SOLO Taxonomy describes the structural complexity of a student's response or understanding — how a student's answer develops from simple to sophisticated as they learn more about a topic.
SOLO Taxonomy — Five Levels
Five Levels of SOLO Taxonomy
| Level | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Prestructural | Student has no real understanding; response is irrelevant or missing the point | Cannot answer or gives an unrelated answer |
| 2. Unistructural | Student understands one relevant piece of information | Names one cause of a historical event |
| 3. Multistructural | Student understands several relevant pieces of information but treats them separately | Lists several causes of an event without connecting them |
| 4. Relational | Student connects different pieces of information into a coherent whole | Explains how several causes of an event are linked |
| 5. Extended Abstract | Student generalizes the understanding to new, abstract situations beyond the original context | Applies the understanding of causes to predict a different, unrelated event |
Key Differences Between Bloom's Taxonomy and SOLO Taxonomy
| Basis | Bloom's Taxonomy | SOLO Taxonomy |
|---|---|---|
| Developed By | Benjamin Bloom (1956); revised by Anderson & Krathwohl (2001) | John Biggs and Kevin Collis (1982) |
| Focus | Types/categories of cognitive thinking (what kind of thinking is required) | Structural complexity of the response (how developed the understanding is) |
| Number of Levels | Six levels | Five levels |
| Levels | Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, Creating | Prestructural, Unistructural, Multistructural, Relational, Extended Abstract |
| Primary Use | Writing learning objectives and designing exam questions | Assessing and describing the quality/depth of a student's actual answer |
| Nature | A classification of educational objectives (outcome-based planning tool) | A model of assessing the growth/structure of understanding (evaluation tool) |
Why This Topic Matters
Both taxonomies are core tools for lesson planning, question design, and assessment in modern teaching practice. Since TLT, ECT, PST, and JEST exams test general pedagogy heavily, questions asking to identify a taxonomy level from a given example, or to distinguish between the two taxonomies, are extremely common.
Practice MCQs
1. Who developed the original Bloom's Taxonomy?
a) John Biggs b) Benjamin Bloom c) Kevin Collis d) Lorin Anderson
2. Which is the highest level in the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy?
a) Evaluating b) Analyzing c) Creating d) Applying
3. SOLO Taxonomy was developed by:
a) Benjamin Bloom b) John Biggs and Kevin Collis c) Lorin Anderson d) David Krathwohl
4. What does SOLO stand for?
a) Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes b) System of Organized Learning Objectives c) Standard of Overall Learning Outcomes d) Structure of Ongoing Learning Objectives
5. A student who lists several relevant facts but does not connect them is at which SOLO level?
a) Unistructural b) Multistructural c) Relational d) Extended Abstract
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