A taxonomy classifies your learning objectives by skill type (for example "remembering" versus "applying"). Use this article to understand what taxonomies are, why they matter for assessment design, and how to manage them in Cirrus.
What a taxonomy is
A taxonomy is a hierarchical model that classifies learning objectives. In a Cirrus blueprint, every item carries both an LO and a taxonomy, so the blueprint matrix can draw items by skill type as well as subject.
The most commonly used taxonomy in education is Bloom's or its revised version. Bloom's covers three domains:
- Cognitive (knowledge-based).
- Affective (emotive-based).
- Sensory / psychomotor (action-based).
Cirrus does not lock you into a specific taxonomy. Set up whichever taxonomy your organisation uses.
Bloom's revised cognitive taxonomy
Original Bloom's:
- Knowledge: recall facts and definitions.
- Comprehension: extract meaning from information.
- Application: use information.
- Analysis: break information into parts.
- Synthesis: combine parts into something new.
- Evaluation: check, judge, and critique.
Revised Bloom's (verbs, with synthesis and evaluation swapped):
- Remember.
- Understand.
- Apply.
- Analyse.
- Evaluate.
- Create.
The revised version is often preferred because:
- It uses verbs, which match the action being assessed.
- It moves Create above Evaluate, on the basis that creating new knowledge is generally harder than evaluating existing knowledge.
- It avoids overloading the word "knowledge".
Why use a taxonomy
Using a taxonomy in assessment design helps you balance evaluative and recall questions, so the test exercises every level of cognitive skill you intend to assess. Lists of verbs to use at each level are widely available. See University of North Carolina Charlotte - Writing measurable course objectives for one example.
For Cirrus specifically: when you build an assessment with a Blueprint, every item must carry both a taxonomy term and a learning objective. Without taxonomy terms, the blueprint cannot draw items.
Set up taxonomies in Cirrus
Open Admin > Taxonomies. The structure has two levels:
- Taxonomy category (repository): the top-level grouping, for example "Bloom's revised".
- Taxonomy terms: the verbs or labels inside the category (Remember, Understand, and so on).
See Adding or deactivating taxonomies for the create / edit workflow.
Related articles
- Adding or deactivating taxonomies
- Working with learning objectives
- Blueprint
- Topics for an alternative to the LO + taxonomy axis.