SOLO vs Bloom

John Biggs

If you want to change student

learning, change assessment.

Benjamin Bloom

JPU/JSU
Jadual

Penentuan
Ujian/Jadual Spesifikasi Ujian
Test Blueprint
Unit Assessment Plan

Jadual Spesifikasi Ujian

Konteks:

kandungan mata pelajaran

Konstruk: tingkahlaku yang ingin diuji
- Kognitif/ pengetahuan
- Psikomotor/ kemahiran
- Afektif/ sikap
Taksonomi untuk menentukan aras
tingkahlaku yang diuji/ konstruk

Bloom and Solo Taxonomy

Like most taxonomies, SOLO describes the

processes involved in asking and answering a
question on a scale of increasing difficulty or
complexity.
Blooms taxonomy refers to the type of thinking
or processing required in completing tasks or
answering questions; i.e know, comprehend,
apply, analyse, synthesise, and evaluate (Bloom,
Engelhart, Furst, Hill & Krathwohl, 1956).

Bloom and SOLO Taxonomy 1/2

"Taxonomy means classification.

the assumption is that each level embraces previous

levels, but adds something more.
Benjamin Bloom (1956) - taxonomy of learning which
includes three overlapping domains: the cognitive,
psychomotor, and affective.

6 levels of Cognitive learning : knowledge, comprehension,

application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
For each level, specific learning behaviours were defined and
sets of verbs given that could be used for writing
instructional objectives.

John Biggs (Biggs & Collis 1982; Biggs, 1999) SOLO

taxonomy that shows the stages of growth of competence

expressed as curriculum objectives.

Provide a framework for systematically assessing quality

s olo vs bloom

Bloom and SOLO Taxonomy 2/2

SOLO describes the processes

involved in asking and answering
a question on a scale of
increasing difficulty or
complexity.

a hierarchical model of
increasing structural complexity:

Blooms taxonomy refers to the

type of thinking or processing
required in completing tasks or
answering questions; that is,
know, comprehend, apply,
analyse, synthesise, and
evaluate.

Deficiency of Bloom taxonomy

The

major deficiencies in the simplistic and

incorrect hierarchy of six steps;
The assumption of a correlation between
item complexity and item difficulty is not
without its flaws.
The categories Comprehension, Application
and Analysis were consistently ordered, as
predicted, but hard to confirm Knowledge
as the first level in the hierarchy.

Masalah pengoperasian taksonomi?

Taksonomi Bloom:
Pengetahuan
Kefahaman
Aplikasi
Analisis
Sintesis
Penilaian

SOLO Taxonomy
Structure

of

Observed
Learning
Outcomes

(Biggs and Collis, 1982)

A method of classifying learner
responses according to the
structure of the response elements

Dua aras Taksonomi SOLO

Terdapat

dua kategori
setiap aras.
Surface
Unistructural
Multistructural;
Deep
Relational
Extended Abstract

Taksonomi SOLO
Taksonomi

SOLO merupakan hiraki

yang sebenar; meningkat secara
kuantiti dan kualiti

Taksonomi

SOLO membimbing
pembinaan soalan aras rendah
(surface) dan aras tinggi (deep)

SOLO TAXONOMY

(Five structural levels of learning (Biggs & Colllis, 1989)

(Structure of the Observed Learning Outcomes)

Prestructural

(i) The task is engaged, but the learner is distracted or misled by an irrelevant aspect belonging to a previous stage
or mode
(ii) Students are simply acquiring bits of unconnected information, which have no organisation and make no
sense

Unistructural

(i) The learner focuses on the relevant domain, and picks one aspect to work with
(ii) Simple and obvious connections are made, but their significance is not grasped

Multistructural

(i)The learner picks up more and more relavant or correct features, but does not integrate them.
(ii) A number of connections may be made, but the metaconnections between them are missed, as is their
significance for the whole.

Relational

(i) The learner now integrates the parts with each other, so that the whole has a coherent structure and meaning.
(ii)The student is now able to appreciate the significance of the parts in relation to the whole.

Extended
Abstract

(i) The learner now generalises the structure to take in new and more abstract features, representing a higher mode
of operation
(ii) The student is making connections not only within the given subject area , but beyond it, able to generalise and
transfer the principless and ideas underlying the spesific instances

SOLO Taxonomy

Prestructural
Response consists only of irrelevant information
Unistructural
Response includes only 1 relevant piece of information from the stimulus
Multistructural
Response includes only several relevant pieces of information from the
stimulus
Relational
Response integrates all relevant pieces of information from the stimulus
Extended Abstract
Response not only includes all relevant pieces of information but
extends the response to integrate relevant pieces of information not in
the stimulus

Contoh: Unistructural
Jawab dengan gunakan
satu maklumat dalam
item

Ahmad dan Basir

mempunyai 10 dan 14
batang pensel masingmasing. Berapakah
pensel yang ada pada
mereka?

Contoh: Multistructural
Jawab dengan gunakan
>1 maklumat dalam item
Ahmad mempunyai 10
batang pensel dan Basir
mempunyai 4 batang
lebih. Berapakah pensel
yang ada pada mereka?

Contoh: Relational
Jawab dengan gunakan >1
maklumat bersama dalam
item
Ahmad lari 100m dalam
masa 13 saat. Basir adalah
7/100 saat lebih cepat
daripada Ahmad. Apakah
masa larian Basir? Berikan
jawapan dalam bentuk
perpuluhan.

Contoh: Extended Abstract

Jawab dengan maklumat yang
diberi dan maklumat
tambahan untuk membuat
kesimpulan
Ahmad lari 100m dalam masa
13 saat. Basir adalah 7/100
saat lebih cepat daripada
Ahmad. Chandran menang
larian ini. Apakah satu masa
larian Chandran yang
mungkin?
Berikan satu ungkapan untuk
mewakili masa larian
pemenang

Mesin nombor

Hasil ialah nombor asal didarab 3

dan ditambah 2
Rujuk kepada rajah

(U) Cari nombor asal jika hasil ialah 14

(M) Cari hasil jika nombor asal ialah 5
(R) Cari nombor asal jika hasil ialah 41
(A) Nombor asal ialah y dan hasil ialah x.
Nyatakan rumus bagi y =

14

ASSESSMENT TOOL
a.

Most desirable (extended abstract)

b.

Very satisfactory (relational)

c.

Student understands, and discusses

meaningfully

Barely satisfactory (unistructural)

e.

Student is able to apply, recognise and

understand content.

Moderately satisfactory (multistructural)

d.

Students are able to evaluate their

decisions and reflect on their results.

Evidence of some effort but student

misunderstood some of the instructions.

Unsatisfactory outcomes (prestructural)

Lack of effort and involvement.

Question - SOLO

SOLO Taxonomy Applied to

Questions/Tasks about Picassos
Guernica
Unistructural. Who painted Portrait
of Mona Lisa ?

Multistructural. Outline at least two

compositional principles that
Leonardo da Vinci used in Mona
Lisa.
Relational. Relate the theme of Mona
Lisa to a current event.
Extended Abstract. What do you
consider Leonardo da Vinci was
saying via his painting of Mona Lisa ?
(1479-1528)

Writing Questions - Unistructural

Childrens fairy tale of Goldilocks

& the Three Bears
A simple unistructural question
(one idea) that could be posed is

Whose house did Goldilocks go

into?

Such a task clearly involves

recall or knowledge, to use
Blooms term, of the single fact,
knowledge, or idea: Bears
house.

Writing Questions- Multistructural

An example of multistructural
(many ideas) is to ask
What are three aspects
about the way the bears
live that tell us that the
story is not a real life
situation?
The response requires simple
listing of human traits that can
be seen in the way the story
portrays the life of bears.

Writing Questions- Relational

Relational questions:

Goldilocks eats the baby

bears food, breaks his
chair, and sleeps in his bed.
What does this tell us about
the kind of person she is?

To tells about what kind

of person the baby bear
is would require
relational thinking.

Writing Questions- Extended

Abstract

The extended abstract approach is to

seek a pattern across a wider range of
cases including those not given
specifically by the Goldilocks story itself.
Such a question is
Why do nursery tales allow wild
animals to act in human fashion?

Writing Questions - Extended

Abstract

a list of possible answers, such as:

a) to reveal negative things about human character in a
safe way;
b) to show the oneness of nature and humanity;
c) to entertain children who easily believe that wild
creatures can talk;
d) to give children courage to face dangers of adult life.
It is obvious that the extended abstract answer is richer
and more well rounded showing evidence of thought well
beyond the narrow confines of the question.

Solo Taxonomy
1. Which is the planet furthermost from the
sun? (Unistructural)
2. Which two planets are closest to Earth?
(Multistructural)
3. Explain how distance from the sun and
temperature are related. (Relational)
4. Given the Earths position relative to the sun,
in what ways does this affect the Earths
climates and seasons? (Extended abstract)

SOLO Classification of Responses to

Open-Ended Items
Question:
Why does it get dark at night?

Unistructural. Because the

sun goes to the other side of
the world.

Multistructural. Because
the earth is spinning and the
earth is going round the sun.

SOLO Classification of Responses to

Open-Ended Items
Question:
Why does it get dark at night?

Relational. It gets dark at night because the

sun goes around the earth once for 12 hours
and for the other 12 hours it is day as the
sun is around the opposite side of the earth.

Extended abstract. The earth is spherical in

shape and rotates about its north-south axis.

As it rotates, at any one time the half of

the Earths sphere facing the sun will be
in light while the opposite half will be in
shadow.

As the earth is rotating continuously, a

point on the earths surface will pass
alternately through the lighted half and
the shaded half.

General principles for asking questions

First, decide on a learning intention related to the given material.

Second, find one element in the material,

Third, devise a question requesting a list of two or more things

that the student can locate from the learning material, related to the
learning intention.

Fourth, provide a list of ideas and ask what they have in common

related to the learning intention, that students can identify, locate, or

complete using one process or one piece of knowledge or data.

to generate a response that requires finding relations between the

ideas.

Finally, decide on the general principle used in the relational

question

i.e., what class of event, personality, situation, rule, etc does this
relationship in the given context connect to? and devise a question,

Thank You