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Energy Education Science and Technology Part B: Social and Educational Studies
2011 Volume (issue) 3(4): 579-588

Classification of Biology Exam

Questions as to Bloom
Sevilay Karamustafaoglu*, Orhan Karamustafaoglu,
Ahmet Bacanak, Salih Degirmenci

Amasya University, Education Faculty, Amasya, Turkey

Received: 22 October 2010; accepted: 16 November 2010

Abstract

The aim of this study is to find out the question types according to Bloom’s Taxonomy asked by
the biology teachers and to compare the school types and cities at the cognitive domain. The sample of
this study was formed by 28 biology teachers who teach in 12 high schools in four cities of Turkey.
The data of the study was obtained by examining the documents. 615 biology questions that were
asked at biology exams between the years of 2007 and 2009 were collected and classified in terms of
the cognitive levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Data was given with tables as percentage. Chi-square and
t-tests were applied on the data by using SPSS statistical software. The results showed that high school
biology questions have the qualities of measuring the ability of lower-order cognitive skills type.

Keywords: Secondary school students; Biology examination questions; Assessment; Teaching of

biology; Bloom’s taxonomy; Cognitive domain
© Sila Science. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Education is a process that brings about permanent changes in student behaviours based on
some specific goals. Some of the important goals of science education are to provide students
with everlasting learning of scientific concepts and improve students’ thinking skills [1-2]. To
realize these aims, planning, teaching and assessment stages are formed. Assessment stage
has an important role to determine whether students’ conceptual development has reached an
acceptable level or not. One of the most important tasks confronting the teachers is the
evaluation of student's performance in education [3]. Evaluation aims to reach a judgement
about student’s learning quality with data obtained from the measurement tools [4]. In this
process, first, it is necessary to test the target behaviours by using high validity and

_______________
*
Corresponding author. Tel: +90-358-252-6230; Fax: +90-358-252-6222.
E-mail address: sevilayt2000@yahoo.com (S. Karamustafaoglu).
580 S. Karamustafaoglu et al. / EEST Part B Social and Educational Studies 3 (2011) 579-588

reliability measuring tools. So, an assessment should be done between expected and
observed outcomes. In science education, especially in biology education, teachers are using
some kinds of measuring tools, multiple-choice tests, true-false tests, matching tests, essay
tests, short-answer tests, oral exams, performance tests, and written or paper-pencil exams.
According to the Davis, a written exam or test is a powerful educational tool in science
education [5]. The written exam type is one of the most frequently used measuring-evaluation
tools in the Turkish science education context [6]. Throughout the rest of this study, the terms
test and exam will be used interchangeably, because the principles in planning, constructing,
and administering tests and exams are similar.
Quality assessment is based on the quality of questions. The question levels which are
asked in the examinations take an important role while assessing students’ achievement and
developing their critical thinking skills. High-level questions can lead students to think more
creatively and multi-dimensionally [7]. Students, who continuously encounter with the low
level questions, tend to be lower thinkers [8-9]. A teacher should ask questions which will
require students to use the thinking skills which they are trying to develop. Therefore, in a
written exam, questions should be used purposefully to achieve well-defined goals. For this, it
is well known that a system exists to organize those thinking skills, Bloom Taxonomy. It has
been used commonly for preparing questions, which help teachers to measure the students’
thinking abilities [10].
Bloom created a threefold division of educational objectives; namely, cognitive, affective
–behavioural- and psychomotor domains [11]. This paper will specifically focus on the
cognitive domain. According to Bloom, the cognitive domain includes those educational
objectives associated with the attainment and development of knowledge and intellect. On the
other hand, Hosseini define cognitive domain as “…. objectives which emphasize
remembering or reproducing something that has personally been learned, as well as
objectives that involve the solving of some intellectual task for which the individual has to
determine the essential problem, then reorder given material, or combine it with ideas,
methods or procedures previously learned” [12]. Bloom's Taxonomy is a hierarchical system
of ordering thinking skills from lower to higher, with the higher levels including all of the
cognitive skills from the lower levels. According to Bloom taxonomy, the six levels of the
cognitive domain are: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and
evaluation [11]. Woolfolk describes the six levels of cognitive domain of Bloom taxonomy
[13]:
• Knowledge - remembering or recognizing something previously encountered without
necessarily understanding, using, or changing it.
• Comprehension - understanding the material being communicated without necessarily relating
it to anything else.
• Application - using general concept to solve a particular problem.
• Analysis - breaking something down into parts.
• Synthesis - creating something new by combining different ideas.
• Evaluation - judging the value of materials or methods as they might be applied in a particular
situation.
A group of cognitive psychologists, curriculum and instructional researchers, and testing
and assessment specialists revised the Bloom’s taxonomy [14]. In the revised taxonomy, the
number of categories in the Bloom’s taxonomy was retained but with significant changes.
Three categories were renamed, the order of two was interchanged, and those category names
retained were changed to verb form to fit the way they are used in instructional objectives.
Knowledge was renamed Remember, Comprehension was renamed Understand, and Synthesis
 S. Karamustafaoglu et al. / EEST Part B Social and Educational Studies 3 (2011) 579-588 581

was re-titled Create. Application, Analysis, and Evaluation were retained, but in their verb
forms as Apply, Analyze, and Evaluate. And also, all the original subcategories were replaced
with gerunds, and called “cognitive processes” [15]. Because Bloom's Taxonomy is a widely
accepted classification system, in this paper we used the categories in the original Bloom’s
taxonomy.
Some educators have simplified and combined the levels of cognitive domain. They refer
to use lower-order cognitive skills (LOCS) for memorization and recall that require only a
minimum level of understanding. On the other hand, they refer to use higher-order cognitive
skills (HOCS) for the application of knowledge and critical thinking that require deep
conceptual understanding [16-18].
Teachers are trying to improve the students’ higher-level cognitive thinking abilities in
science classes [19]. In order to achieve, they should get away from simple applications and
low-level understanding of concepts and emphasize the ability to apply and synthesize
knowledge to complex problems. Bloom argues that it is important for tests to measure
higher-learning as well [11]. Of course, this is not to say that all exam questions must focus
on high-level questions; but it is important to assess students' understanding on a wide range
of cognitive levels [20]. Teachers spend most of their time asking low-level cognitive
questions rather than the high-level questions [7, 21]. However, some researchers have stated
that students remember more when they have learned to handle the topic at the high level.
Crooks, Wergin and McKeachie report that students study in ways that reflect how they think
they will be tested [22-24]. If they expect an exam focused on facts, they will memorize too
much details and if they expect an exam that will require problem solving or integrating
knowledge, they will work towards understanding and applying information. Since, they can
use their knowledge to solve problems, to analyze and to evaluate. In other words, the
students who expect low-level questions meet and the questions that require high-level skills
usually fail.
The Turkish 8th grade students, for example, failed in TIMSS-R and TIMSS 2007 that
requires high-level skills. According to TIMSS 2007 International Science Report for Turkey,
achievement range for the advanced 3%, the high 16%, the intermediate 40%, and the low
71% benchmarks [25]. Some of the studies in Turkey showed that the percentage of high-
level questions asked by teachers that require students to use higher order thinking skills and
that improve the abilities of their problem solving is insufficient [9, 17, 26].
Biology teachers usually apply written exams to find out whether the students learn study
methods, scientific facts, contents, laws, theories and innovations of biology or not. To assess
biology teaching at all types of high schools, it is important to determine the quality of
questions asked in school exams, because high-level-cognitive questions can be defined as
questions that require students to think deeply and to use reasoning skills. In order to improve
the quality of teaching, it is widely believed that one must be able to question well. Asking
good questions foster interaction between a teacher and his/her students [7, 27].
The purpose of this study is to analyze the biology questions asked at the different types of
high school exams and to compare the differences of cities according to the levels of
cognitive domain of the Bloom’s Taxonomy.

2. Method

In this research a document analysis method was used. The term of document refers to a
wide range of written and physical materials. One of the main advantages of documentary
research is stability [28]. In educational research, this method also gives opportunities for
582 S. Karamustafaoglu et al. / EEST Part B Social and Educational Studies 3 (2011) 579-588

researchers to examine educational files and records, which are valuable sources of data [29].
In this research, secondary school biology exam questions were analyzed as a document.
The research was conducted in 12 secondary schools (student age: 14-17), which are four
Ordinary High Schools four Vocational and Commercial High Schools and four Anatolian
Secondary Schools, in the cities of Ankara, Trabzon, Amasya and Giresun in Turkey in the
years of 2007-09. Ordinary high schools (OHS) are well known as general high schools.
Vocational and commercial high schools (VCHS) usually accept students who try to enter
profession early without graduating university. These schools mostly concentrate on the
abilities needed at their professional. A few students are willing to enter university from these
schools. Anatolian high schools (AHS) accept students with the nation-wide selection
examination. Usually, bright pupils are able to enroll these schools. The purpose of AHS is to
educate students for the university. Generally, students with higher socio-economic level
enroll these schools. Almost in each city has one Anatolian high school. Big cities, however,
have more than one.
Ankara is the capital city of Turkey, in Central Anatolia. Trabzon is a big city on the Black
Sea coast with a population of approximately three hundred thousand in the city centre. Its
socio-economic statue is accepted as over medium. Amasya is a small city at the middle of
Black Sea region with a population of approximately eighty thousands in the city centre. Its
socio-economic statue is accepted as medium. Giresun is also a small province of Turkey on
the Black Sea coast. Those four cities have all kinds of secondary schools and the success rate
of these four cities in the university entrance examination (OSS) is below average, in
comparison with the other cities in Turkey. Economies of these cities are mostly based on
agriculture.
Six hundreds and fifteen (615) written-exam questions asked by 28 biology teachers in
these schools during two academic terms were collected by the researchers. These questions
were analyzed in terms of the stages of the cognitive domain [10]. The authors have many
experiences concerning, preparing and analyzing questions in respect to cognitive domains. In
the analysis process, all the authors individually analyze each question according to Bloom.
Majority of the questions were classified into the same category by the authors. It was found
that the authors had a high consensus on the level of the questions [30]. Interrater reliability
was assessed using Cohen’s kappa [31]. The researchers checked the reliability of the coding
(a 95% agreement is suggested; κ= 0.83 for Cohen's kappa). Criteria for reliability have been
defined as follows: <O (poor), 0 to 0.20 (slight), 0.21 to .40 (fair), 0.41 to 0.60 (moderate),
0.61 to 0.80 (substantial), and .81 to 1.00 (almost perfect) [32]. Statistical analyses were
carried out using the SPSS statistical software.

3. Results

In Table 1, 615 questions asked by 28 biology teachers working in different types of high
schools from four different cities were presented and questions’ dispersion according to levels
of cognitive domain were also given.
As seen from Table 1, questions asked at high-level of cognitive domain (analysis,
synthesis and evaluation levels) were approximately 9.5 percent (ftotal=58). Most of the
questions approximately 90.5 percent (ftotal=557) were asked at low-level (knowledge,
comprehension, application). Majority of the questions at Anatolian High Schools were asked
at the application level. However, there are questions asked at all levels in these schools.
Moreover, Chi-Square Test was put into practice for the data in Table 1, the null and
alternative hypotheses are as follows:
 S. Karamustafaoglu et al. / EEST Part B Social and Educational Studies 3 (2011) 579-588 583

Table 1. Distribution of exam questions according to cognitive levels and school types
School Types OHS VCHS AHS Total
Question Levels f % f % f % f %
Knowledge 44 21.78 93 40.61 25 13.59 162 26.3
Comprehension 65 32.18 65 28.38 45 24.46 175 28.4
Application 79 39.11 58 25.33 83 45.11 220 35.8
Analysis 11 5.45 12 5.24 18 9.78 41 6,7
Synthesis 2 0.99 1 0.44 9 4.89 12 2,0
Evaluation 1 0.50 0 0.00 4 2.17 5 0.8
Total 202 229 184 615

Ho: question and school types are related the sample

H1: question and school types are independent in the sample
First, it was found that 33.3% cells with expected frequency less than 5 in Chi-Square Test
output by using SPSS statistical software. Therefore, analyses, synthesis and evaluation rows
were attached and the test procedure was repeated for reliability on the test. The SPSS output
results were given in Tables 2-3.

Table 2. Observed frequencies*–distribution of question types according to school types-

Level OHS VCHS AHS Total
Knowledge 44 (53.2) 93 (60.3) 25 (48.5) 162
Comprehension 65 (57.5) 65 (65.2) 45 (52.4) 175
Application 79 (72.3) 58 (81.9) 83 (65.8) 220
Anal./Syn./Eva. 14 (19.1) 13 (21.6) 31 (17.4) 58
Total 202 229 184 615
*
Expected frequencies from Table 2 are in parentheses.

Table 3. Computation of χ2observed for data on the relation between questions and school
types provided in Table 2
Chi-Square Test Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 60.268a 6 0.000
N of Valid Cases 615
a
0 cells (,0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 17,4.

Since the results, χ2observed = 60,268 exceeds χ2crtical(.01, 6) = 16,81, p< .01, the null
hypothesis should be rejected. Clearly, question types are related to school types. Specifically,
Anatolian high schools’ teachers tend to choose questions of high cognitive levels but the
other schools’ teachers tend to choose questions of low cognitive levels.
Table 4 shows the distribution of the 615 questions according to school types and cities. It
appears that there are some differences between cities as well as school types in terms of
question levels. As seen in Table 4 knowledge level questions were asked more at VCHS, and
application level questions were asked more at OHS and AHS.
The results, χ2observed = 29,567 exceed χ2crtical(.01,9) = 21,67, p< .01. Clearly, question types
are related to cities. When observed values taken into consideration, the number of questions
at application levels more than the other levels in all the cities can be seen at Table 5.
Especially teachers working in high schools of Ankara tend to choose questions of high
cognitive levels (Table 5) but teachers working in other tend to choose questions of low
cognitive levels.
584 S. Karamustafaoglu et al. / EEST Part B Social and Educational Studies 3 (2011) 579-588

Table 4. Distribution of the questions according to school types and cities

LOCS HOCS
Cities School Types
1 2 3 4 5 6 Total
f 7 12 16 5 2 1 43
OHS
% 16.3 27.9 37.2 11.6 4.7 2.3 100
f 15 11 15 4 1 0 46
VCHS
% 32.6 23.9 32.6 8.7 2.2 0.0 100
Ankara
f 4 9 18 6 4 3 44
AHS
% 9.1 20.5 40.9 13.6 9.1 6.8 100
f 26 32 49 15 7 4 133
Total
% 19.5 24.1 36.8 11.3 5.3 3.0 100
f 9 13 19 3 0 0 44
OHS
% 20.5 29.5 43.2 6.8 0.0 0.0 100
f 22 15 16 4 0 0 57
VCHS
Trabzon % 38.6 26.3 28.1 7.0 0.0 0.0 100
f 5 11 22 5 3 1 47
AHS
% 10.6 23.4 46.8 10.6 6.4 2.1 100
f 36 39 57 12 3 1 148
Total
% 24.3 26.4 38.6 8.1 2.0 0.6 100
f 13 20 23 2 0 0 58
OHS
% 22.4 34.5 39.7 3.4 0.0 0.0 100
f 27 21 13 2 0 0 63
VCHS
Amasya % 42.9 33.3 20.6 3.2 0.0 0.0 100
f 9 13 24 4 1 0 51
AHS
% 17.6 25.5 47.1 7.8 2.0 0.0 100
f 49 54 60 8 1 0 172
Total
% 28.5 31.4 34.9 4.7 0.5 0 100

f 15 20 21 1 0 0 57
OHS
% 26.3 35.1 36.8 1.8 0.0 0.0 100
f 29 18 14 2 0 0 63
VCHS
% 46.0 28.6 22.2 3.2 0.0 0.0 100
Giresun
f 7 12 19 3 1 0 42
AHS
% 16.7 28.6 45.2 7.1 2.4 0.0 100
f 51 50 54 6 1 0 162
Total
% 31.5 30.9 33.3 3.7 0.6 0 100
f 44 65 79 11 2 1 202
OHS
% 21.78 32.18 39.11 5.45 0.99 0.50 100
f 93 65 58 12 1 0 229
Total VCHS
% 40.61 28.38 25.33 5.24 0.44 0.00 100
f 25 45 83 18 9 4 184
AHS
% 13.59 24.46 45.11 9.78 4.89 2.17 100
f 162 175 220 41 12 5 615
General Total
% 26.3 28.5 35.8 6.7 2.0 0.8 100
1- Knowledge, 2-Comprehension, 3-Application, 4-Analysis, 5- Synthesis, 6-Evaluation.

4. Discussion, conclusion and recommendations

Data showed that the majority of the teachers’ questions appeared to be at the first three
levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Table 1 indicated that teachers’ questions according to all types
of the schools were totally 26.3 % at knowledge, 28.4 % at comprehension and 35.8 % at
application level. In addition of these results, computed χ2 test values proved that question and
 S. Karamustafaoglu et al. / EEST Part B Social and Educational Studies 3 (2011) 579-588 585

Table 5. Computation of χ2observed for data on the relation between questions and cities
according to the observed and expected* frequencies
Level Knowledge Comprehension Application Anal./Syn./Eva. Total
Ankara 26 (35.0) 32 (37.8) 49 (47.6) 26 (12.5) 133
Trabzon 36 (39.0) 39 (42.1) 57 (52.9) 16 (14.0) 148
Amasya 49 (45.3) 54 (48.9) 60 (61.5) 9 (16.2) 172
Giresun 51 (42.7) 50 (46.1) 54 (58.0) 7 (15.3) 162
Total 162 175 220 58 615
Chi-Square Test Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)
Pearson Chi-Square 29.567a 9 0.001
N of Valid Cases 615
*
Expected frequencies from table 5 are in parentheses.
a
0 cells (,0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 12.54.

school types are related. It’s seen that the questions at the knowledge level were especially
asked at VCHS (40.61%). These types of questions were rarely asked at AHS (13.59%). The
comprehension level questions were asked mostly at OHS (32.18%). The application level
questions were mostly asked at AHS (45.11%) in comparison with the others. According to
Azar, questions requiring higher cognitive skills were asked in AHS and OHS but were not
asked in VCHS exams [33].
The questions at analysis, synthesis and evaluation levels, which require students to think
scientifically, were not used by the teachers excessively. These types of questions were used
at AHS’ exams more than the others. Similar results have been found in other studies in
Turkey [8, 17, 33, 34]. It is argued that the students who are successful in university entrance
exams are especially graduated from AHS among these three types of schools [35]. As a
result, it’s believed that teachers who work at AHS have consciously asked the questions at
analysis, synthesis and evaluation levels which provide the students the opportunity to
analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the material and ideas.
From Table 1, one can consider that the examination questions at application and lower
levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy were prepared to measure students’ understanding of concepts,
and applying level of biological events into problems and teaching formula. However,
whether the questions examined in this study were new for students or they come across with
them before exams were unknown. Consequently, some questions accepted as application
level could be at knowledge and comprehension levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Also, we
concluded that the examined questions were not suitable for students to perceive the basic
concepts in biology, and assimilate and interpret the biological events, and connect them daily
life events and needs.
According to the TIMSS International Science Report the 8th grade students are better at
answering the applying questions than the knowledge questions at the cognitive domain [25,
p:127]. This result can be interpreted as the Turkish students are more successful in applying
questions (level) since such questions are met more frequently in school-exams and OSS [33].
Table 4 shows the comparison of the results of the question types according to Bloom
taxonomy. There are not any important differences among all types of high schools as
percentage and t-test output. Results obtained from these four cities show that the majority of
the biology teachers ask low-level questions. Therefore, it is believed that these questions are
not able to increase students’ thinking abilities. These conditions lead students to memorize
the concepts without understanding real meaning [36-37].
Although majority of the high school students take high mark from the biology exams,
these results do not reflect the real achievement. Because, when students are able to solve
586 S. Karamustafaoglu et al. / EEST Part B Social and Educational Studies 3 (2011) 579-588

many questions at OSS exams, they can be accepted as successful students. It is known that,
majority of the questions asked in the university entrance examinations which have a turning
point in students’ life are required analytic thinking and cross-examine between concepts [26,
38]. However, it is well known that even very successful students in science lessons have not
been able to do more questions at the OSS exams [39].
Almost all of the students who intended to enter the university take these private courses
by giving payment. During these courses, experts or teachers solve many high-level sample
questions and students memorize the ways of solving these questions. If students come across
similar questions, they are able to solve them by following some practical ways and rules
without understanding biology concepts. In this way, high level questions become knowledge
or comprehension levels for students [18, 40-45]. Furthermore, low level questions do not
improve student conceptual development; on the contrary, they direct students to memorize
knowledge [36]. Briefly, low level questions according to Bloom Taxonomy do not improve
students’ thinking abilities. Hundreds of low level questions solved by the students do not
improve their cognitive levels.
Demircioglu and Demircioglu indicated that teachers generally worry that the students
cannot answer or the success level of school will fall when they ask the comment based
questions [46]. This can be explained by the teachers’ asking more low-level questions or
their unawareness of the cognitive domain [47-51].
Based on the results from this study, in order to improve students’ achievement and
thinking abilities the following suggestions should be taken into consideration.

Biology Teachers should teach the subjects by respecting students’ cognitive development
levels,

Teachers should ask exploratory and open-ended questions in their exams to make students
investigate and adapt to their daily life.

During student teachers’ undergraduate program, they should be trained theoretically and
practically concerning how teachers prepare biology subjects and questions suitable for cognitive
development levels.

Teachers teach the biology courses should prepare exam questions with their colloquies in
respect to cognitive domains.

Teachers should solve questions not by making students to memorize the ways of solving
problems but by understanding the real meaning of the concepts.

Appendix: Examples and analysis of the exam questions

Cognitive Level Question
Knowledge: What is pollination?
Comprehension: We used fossil fuels in the various fields in our daily life. Discuss the impacts,
using fossil fuels, on society and on the environment.
Application: Feather color in budgies is determined by two different genes (Y and B). Y_B_, is
green; yyB_ is blue; Y_bb is yellow; and yybb is white. Two green budgies were
crossed. Over the years, they produced 22 offspring, 5 of which were white.
• What are the most likely genotypes for the two green budgies?
• Determine the probability that an offspring will be recessive for at least one
trait. (Assume these genes are unlinked and autosomal.)
Analysis: Compare and contrast the equation for oxidative respiration with the equation for
photosynthesis.
Synthesis: What would happen if the animal cells also had the organelles that not in animal
cells but in plant cells?
Evaluation: Judge the benefits of meiosis and mitosis for our life?
 S. Karamustafaoglu et al. / EEST Part B Social and Educational Studies 3 (2011) 579-588 587

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