Rethinking Bloom's Taxonomy: Implicit Cognitive Vulnerability as an Impetus towards Higher Order Thinking Skills

Abstract

Implicit cognition is an intriguing area of focus when one considers the impact of implicit memory theories upon each learner's cognitive vulnerability when framed through Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain. Specifically, consider the learner's cognitive understanding and movement from the lower order thinking skills, say from the Knowledge realm and Comprehension realm, towards the higher order thinking skills, Synthesis realm and Evaluation realm, or one of the revised domains to reflect Digital Age expectations. Although much is available on the different levels of cognitive achievement, the “in between” leaps in a learner's ability to work with the information in new and different manners may suggest that the cognitive vulnerability may impact the learner's implicit memory and the learner's movement between different taxonomic levels of informational understanding.