The domains of learning are used to classify learning. These classifications allow teachers to be better able to organize instruction and therefore provide better structure and improve clarity. Students will be better able to achieve success if they more clearly understand the structure of the instruction provided.
There are three basic domains of learning. (The following descriptions are adapted from Teaching Strategies: A Guide to Better Instruction by Orlich, et.al.)
This domain deals with the recall or recognition of knowledge and the development of intellectual abilities and skills. This is the domain in which most of the work in curriculum development has taken place. The clearest definitions of instructional objectives phrased as descriptions of student behavior occur within this domain.
This domain is that area which concerns attitudes, beliefs, and the entire spectrum of values and value systems. This area is often considered the more difficult domain in which to structure instruction.
This domain attempts to classify the coordination aspects that are associated with movement and to integrate the cognitive and affective consequences with bodily performances
The Cognitive Domain (as originally classified by Bloom)
Level Characteristic Student Behaviors
Knowledge Remembering, recalling, memorizing, recognizing
Comprehension Interpreting, translating from one medium to another, describing in one’s own words
Application Problem-solving, applying information to produce some result
Analysis Breaking something down to show how it is put together, (and bweing able to put it back together!), finding an underlying strucutre, identifying motives.
Synthesis Creating a unique, original product that maybe concrete or abstract.
Evaluation Making value decisions about issues, resolving controversies or differences of opinion
Later classifications of the cognitive domain have combined and/or reorganized the various levels.
Affective Domain (as classified by Kratwohl)
Level Characteristic Student Behaviors
Receiving Students receives and then focuses their attention upon a message or other form of stimuli.
Responding Students engage in activities that relate to receiving the message.
Valuing Learners internalize the concept of “worth”. This level is exhibited by the individual as a deliberate behavior and not simply as a willingness to conform to rules or standards.
Organization As learner’s experiences broaden, they begin to classify and order their values, beliefs, and attitudes. Students take a values-based position and can defend it if necessary.
Characterization The highest level of the affective domain. Students are committed to their values, and are identified or characterized based upon their affective behaviors.
Psychomotor Domain (as classified by Jewett and Mullan)
Level Characteristic Student Behaviors
Generic movement Those movements or processes which facilitate the development of characteristic and effective motor patterns. They are typically exploratory operations in which the learner receives or “takes in” data as she or he moves. Awareness of the movement and body movements as well as patterning are experienced or demonstrated.
Ordinative movement Learners are able to organize and process skillful movements. They are able to adapt and refine skillful movements in order to be able to solve particular tasks or performance requirements.
Creative movement The highest level of the psychomotor domain. Students are able to create or invent movement that will serve the individual (personal) purposes of the learner.