Critical Thinking

Bloom's Taxonomy was created in 1956 under the leadership of educational psychologist Dr Benjamin Bloom in order to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating concepts, processes, procedures, and principles, rather than just remembering facts (rote learning). Students exhibiting cognitive skills of this level can categorize or classify information, comparing and contrasting it in order to make a decision thereby enhancing their critical thinking skills.

Other characteristics of higher order thinking include: combining, creating, designing, developing, evaluating, justifying, and measuring. A student undertaking a university course should be able to progressively demonstrate these cognitive skills when thinking and reasoning through assignments and problems. Some examples of these include:

• Understanding the links between ideas.
• Determining the importance and relevance of arguments and ideas.
• Recognizing, creating and evaluating arguments.
• Identifying inconsistencies and errors in reasoning.
• Approaching problems in a consistent and systematic way.
• Reflecting on the justification of their own assumptions, beliefs and values.

Image credit: Jessica Shabatura. For more information see https://tips.uark.edu/using-blooms-taxonomy/