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A test of the achievement of students is a test of the extent to
which the students have attained these educational objec-
tives. An achievement test is an adequate and valid test if
it provides evidence of the extent to which students are at-
taining each of the major objectives of the unit of instruc-
tion.
The cognitive objectives derived from a process like
that described in the foregoing paragraphs may, for dis-
cuss ion purposes, be divided into two parts. One would be
the simple behavior of remembering or recalling knowledge
and the other, the more complex behaviors of the abilities
and skills. The following section discusses these two divi-
sions in turn, considering their nature, their appearance
in the taxonomy, and their place in the curriculum.
Knowledge as ~ taxonomy category
Probably the most common educational objective in
American education is the acquisition of knowledge or in-
formation. That is, it is desired that as the result of com-
pleting an educational unit, the student will be changed with
respect to the amount and kind of knowledge he possesses.
Frequently knowledge is the primary, sometimes almost
the sole kind of, educational objective in a curriculum.
almost every course it is an important or basic one. By
knowledge, we mean that the student can give evidence that
he remembers, either by recalling or by recognizing, some
idea or phenomenon with which he has had experience in
the educational process. For our taxonomy purposes, we
are defining knowledge as little more than the remembering
4 Thomas, R. Murray, Judging Student Progress, New
York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1954, chap. 1.
5 Remmers, H. H., and Gage, N. L., Educational
Measurement and Evaluation, Revised Edition, New York:
Harper & Bros., 1955, chap. 1.
6 Tyler, Ralph W., and Smith, Eugene, Appraising
and Recording Student Progress, Vol. III, New York:
Harper & Bros., 1942, chap. 1.
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of the idea or phenomenon in a form very close to that in
which it was originally encountered.
This type of objective emphasizes most the psycho-
logical processes of remembering. Knowledge may also
involve the more complex processes of relating and judg-
ing, since it is almost impossible to present an individual
with a knowledge problem which includes exactly the same
stimuli, signals, or cues as were present in the original
learning situation. Thus, any test situation involving knowl-
edge requires some organization and reorganization of the
problem to furnish the appropriate signals and cues linking
it to the knowledge the individual possesses. It may be
helpful in this case to think of knowledge as something filed
or stored in the mind. The task for the individual in
each knowledge test situation is to find the appropriate
signals and cues in the problem which will most effective-
ly bring out whatever knowledge is filed or stored. For
instance, almost everyone has had the experience of being
unable to answer a question involving recall when the ques-
tion is stated in one form, and then having little difficulty
in remembering the necessary information when the ques-
tion is restated in another form. This is well illustrated
by John Dewey's story in which he asked a class, "What
In would you find if you dug a hole in the earth?" Getting no
response, he repeated the question; again he obtained no-
thing but silence. The teacher chided Dr. Dewey, "You're
asking the wrong question." Turning to the class, she
asked, "What is the state of the center of the earth?" The
class replied in unison, "Igneous fusion. "
John Dewey's story also illustrates the rote recall na-
ture of some knowledge learning. The emphasis on knowl-
edge as involving little more than remembering or recall
distinguishes it from those conceptions of knowledge which
involve "understanding," "insight," or which are phrased
as "really know," or "true knowledge." In these latter con-
ceptions it is implicitly assumed that knowledge is of little
value if it cannot be utilized in new situations or in a form
very different from that in which it was originally encoun-
tered. The denotations of these latter concepts would usu-
ally be close to what have been defined as "abilities and
skills" in the taxonomy.