Using Bloom’s Revised Cognitive Skills Taxonomy To Evaluate Iranian Students’ Pre-University English Textbook and University Entrance Exams

The priority attributed to the use of Bloom’s revised cognitive skills taxonomy in any educational system and the scarcity of research on this type of topic in our EFL context, the researchers attempted to conduct this study. Our primary objectives revolved around these dimensions. To examine if the pre-university teaching materials (English 1 and 2) assigned and employed by the teachers to teach their students at Shiraz followed Bloom’s hierarchy. Likewise, the researchers attempted to check if the University Entrance Exams administered every year of screening the registered candidates to enter the universities in Iran was compatible with this taxonomy. Finally, to check if the differences between the two dichotomies (lower and higher) in the textbook were statistically significant. To achieve these goals, the content of the textbook and that of general and English majors’ tests were evaluated against Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Analyzing the data through descriptive statistics and a Chi-square test applied to data gathered from the English book, the results showed that the content of the book was not aligned with the order of Bloom’s thinking skills. The hierarchy starts from lower order: remembering, understanding, and applying towards higher order: analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Likewise, the analysis of the university entrance exams’ content did not reveal any congruity with Bloom’s hierarchy. So no agreement between the two sources of input with Bloom’s learning objectives was witnessed. Pedagogical implications and recommendations are presented.