VALIDATION OF A COGNITIVE TAXONOMY-HIERARCHY DESCRIBING BEHAVIORAL OUTCOMES OF INSTRUCTION: THE DOMAIN OF COGNITION (LEARNING, THINKING, INFORMATION-PROCESSING)

The present study incorporated three parts which were conducted in order to determine how valid the Domain of Cognition was in respect to: (1) the sequence of its levels, (2) its applicability to classroom instruction, and (3) its accuracy in terms of describing the outcome behaviors of students as a result of instruction.;In Part 2, pre- and inservice teachers were asked to read specific behavioral objectives and match them to the levels of the Domain of Cognition. Part 2 results revealed that pre- and inservice teachers could match specific behavioral objectives to the levels of the Domain of Cognition with a high degree of accuracy, the only exception being those associated with level 8. Chi-square analysis revealed that 40 out of 48 objectives were classified at, above or significantly close to a 90% accuracy level.;In Part 3, a "variety-in-experiential-background" was provided to 5th and 6th graders who were then given an immediate posttest the same day and a delayed posttest approximately 23-24 hours later. The results from this study indicated that outcome behaviors as described by the Domain of Cognition on the day new information is presented are not as distinct from each other as compared with behaviors 23-24 or more hours later. On the immediate posttest, one-way ANOVA revealed that significant differences were found only between mean scores on Reception: Recognition and the other three sublevels tested. A Kendall's Tau Correlation coefficient of .33 (p = .38) was obtained which indicated that the order of immediate posttest outcome behaviors did not match the criterion order in the Domain of Cognition. On the delayed posttest, one-way ANOVA revealed that all sublevel mean scores were significantly different from each other. A Kendall's Tau Correlation coefficient of 1.00 (p < .05) was obtained indicating that the order of delayed posttest outcome behaviors perfectly matched the criterion order in the Domain of Cognition.;In Part 1, subjects were asked to take randomly arranged descriptions of levels and place them in order from lowest to highest. The results of Part 1 revealed that pre- and inservice teachers could sequence the levels of the Domain of Cognition with a high degree of accuracy based only upon the descriptions given. Kendall's Tau Correlation coefficients of 1.00 were obtained (p < .0001) after using the median and mode of subjects' responses in comparison to the criterion order as found in the Domain of Cognition.