Practice of teacher educators in using taxonomy of educational objectives for making instructional decisions

This paper looks at the practice of teacher educators in using one of the most important achievements in educational progress, the development of Taxonomy of Educational Objectives by Benjamin Bloom which considers the kinds of cognitive processes students may move through as they learn. The focus is on the teacher educator's practice rather than the practice of teachers, and hence the research sites selected for the study are teacher education institutions where the professional courses such as PTC, CT, B.Ed and M.Ed are being taught to prospective teachers.

A qualitative study was conducted selecting 25 teacher educators and interviewing them. The findings show the positive attitude of teacher educators regarding the use of Bloom's Taxonomy for making instructional decisions. However, the practice of using Bloom's Taxonomy by the teacher educators is essentially limited to the lower taxonomic level and it is not used for determining content and method of assessment. The study recommends the use of Bloom's taxonomy of Educational Objectives at a variety of levels, particularly levels of higher order and integration of Bloom's taxonomy with different learning styles.