Taxonomies of Educational Objectives and Theories of Classification

Editor's Note: I am delighted that EEPA is publishing such an extremely relevant article in the field of educational evaluation, for as Professor Travers observed, it deals with one of the most basic problems in all of evaluation. However, evaluators have not yet recognized the problem as a problem. Present literature avoids discussion of two core problems in the area of evaluation: (1) What is a sound basis for classifying behavior? and (2) What is the nature of the value judgments through which such behaviors are judged to be worthy? In both of these areas, the evaluation specialist is virtually no more sophisticated than the ordinary citizen. This article demonstrates that a sophisticated classification system must result from thought at a sophisticated scientific level, and not from the kind of committee deliberations from which taxonomies of behavior have been derived.