In the 1950s Benjamin Bloom led a group of psychologists to develop Bloom’s Taxonomy, a classification of the levels of learning. The taxonomy is a pyramid; the basic and bottom level of learning is knowledge. Building up, learners are expected at the next levels to apply, analyze, synthesize and finally evaluate the information they have gained.

For example, examine the following questions. The first is a simple recall question, and the second asks the user to apply what they have learned.

Which of the following age groups includes the most frequent victims of ingested poisonings involving household products?

a. Children

b. Teenagers

c. Adults

d. Elderly

You respond to a wheat farm where your patient, 48 year old Darrell has a large chemical burn covering his right hand and right lower arm. Darrell reports that he was mixing a liquid solution of pesticide, when it splashed onto his ungloved hand and arm. What is the transmission route for this type of poisoning is:

a. Surface absorbed

b. Ingested

c. Inhaled

d. Injected

When writing multiple choice quiz questions, it is vital to remember the taxonomy to ensure to ask learners to not only recall information but also to understand, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate what they have learned.

Related posts:

1. The Art of Multiple Choice Quiz Writing: Response Types
2. The Art of Multiple Choice Quiz Writing: Terminology
3. The Art of Multiple Choice Quiz Writing: My Five Rules

Tags: Bloom's Taxonomy, Quiz Questions, Writing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Rapid E-Learning How To, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.