Blooms Taxonomy of Education and its use in Nursing Education
Lydia A. Smith
NUR/427
September, 22 2014
Blooms Taxonomy of Education and its use in Nursing Education It was estimated that there were 133 million people living with at least one chronic disease in 2005 and that more than 7.1 million Americans die of a chronic disease each year (Larsen & Lubkin, 2009). This figure clearly shows that Chronic Disease is a major issue and will only get worse with people living longer with our advanced technology in healthcare. Nurses will be caring for patients who are higher in acuity and less resources as cost-cutting is always a factor. Nurses will need to think critically, more efficiently and more effectively. In the early 1950’s, an educational psychologist named Benjamin Bloom, developed Bloom’s taxonomy of Educational Objectives (Larkin & Burton, 2008), which was a classification of intellectual behaviors that are important to learning. The taxonomy is further classified into three domains: the cognitive, affective and psychomotor, with each of these domains being broken down further into further levels of learning. The basic types of learning and awareness to be accomplished before the higher levels of learning could achieved. As the authors explain further in “The Revises Bloom’s Taxonomy” (Su & Osisek, 2011), that by using this guide of learning objectives, nursing students can bridge what they have learned in school and apply it to real life patient care situations, and the taxonomy “guides educators to deliberately explore a broad array of teaching methods that will yield the intended learning” (2011, p.323). Nurses will also learn that by using Bloom’s Taxonomy to educate patients and families dealing with chronic disease, they will hopefully improve patient outcome. Cognitive Domain The Cognitive Domain represents the use of knowledge in regards to teaching and learning and mental skills. The six levels from the lowest level of learning to the highest are knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation (Hayter, 1983). When teaching patients you must assess which level the patient is on, then begin teaching at that point, which includes that you also consider family or care givers at this point. Having the patients and care givers restate what you taught them is very helpful when assessing the level of understanding. This will further foster patient learning because building on the educational process will foster more questions as the patient has a better grasp of their condition. Having handouts presented in easy-to-understand format with visual aids is important. When teaching is done effectively then the nurse and patient together can effectively create a plan of care that addresses the chronic illness, and is realistic for the patient to follow.
Affective Domain In the effective domain is the patient’s willingness to listen, concentrate on attitudes and feelings regarding chronic illness and how the patient and family are slowly evolving with their values, attitude and growing interest. The five major levels are receiving, responding, valuing, organization, and internalizing values (Hayter, 1983). Nurses should get at eye level with their patients so they can assess the non-verbal clues of understanding. The patient can then be more attentive and present during the teaching and then the nurse can better analyze if the patient and/or caregivers are ready to go to the next level of teaching. This can be evident if patients express an interest in learning more about their disease process. They are showing signs of responding and valuing the information they have been given. They use all this information to organize a plan that they may want to apply to later, home self-care. They are now thinking about taking the steps to self-manage their disease at home and can apply this newfound knowledge to a realistic way for them to deal with a