Evaluating the Iranian Senior ELT High School Vision Series in Terms of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

English Department, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Ilam University, Ilam, Iran

Abstract

T
The textbook analysis is a vigorous research approach for evaluating the conformity between the content and the purpose of education. Accordingly, the relatively newly-published Iranian ELT textbooks for senior high school, known as the “Vision series” were analyzed for their prominent levels of learning objectives according to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Activity sections of textbooks were codified according to the Taxonomy’s coding scheme, and the inter/intra-rater reliability which were measured and approved. Results revealed that the lower-order categories of cognitive domain are more frequently represented in Vision series of 1 and 2, and chi-square statistics indicate that Vision 3 is significantly different from the other two. The inclusion of higher-order categories in Vision 3 creates hope for increasing students’ proficiency and activating students’ need to develop higher-order thinking skills which are prerequisites to critical thinking and autonomous learning. Findings also maintain that the cognitive domain and metacognitive knowledge domain were the least perceived in the three textbooks which call for inclusion of more reflective activities and supplementing higher-order cognitive activities or complementary tasks in Visions 1 and 2.

Keywords


Al-hasanat, H. A. (2016). Analyzing assessment questions in an Arabic textbook (communication skills) for eight grade in Jordan according to Bloom’s taxonomy of levels of knowledge aims. World Journal of Education, 6(2), 82-92.
Aliakbari, M., & Gheitasi, M. (2020). Evaluation of culture representation in Vision English textbook series for Iranian secondary public education. Journal of English Language Teaching and Learning, 12(26), 145-173.
Anderson, L. D., & Krathwohl, D. (2001). Taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.
Ansary, H., & Babaii, E. (2002). Universal characteristics of EFL/ESL textbooks: A step towards systematic textbook evaluation. The Internet TESL Journal, 8(2). http://iteslj.org/Articles/Ansary-Textbooks
Assaly, I. R., & Oqlah, M. S. (2015). Using Bloom’s taxonomy to evaluate the cognitive levels of master class textbook’s questions. English Language Teaching, 8(5), 100-111.
Aviles, C. B. (2000). Teaching and testing for critical thinking with Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. ERIC Document ED446023.
             http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED446023.
Black, S. M., & Ellis, R. B. (2010). Evaluating the level of critical thinking in introductory investment courses. The Free Library. http://www.thefreelibrary.com
Bloom, B. S., Engelhart, M. D., Furst, E. J., Hill, W. H., & Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: Handbook I: Cognitive domain. David McKay.
Çakit, I. (2006). Evaluation of the EFL textbook: New bridge to success 3 from the perspectives of students and teachers [Unpublished master’s thesis]. The Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
Canon, H. M., & Feinstein, A. H. (2005). Bloom beyond Bloom: Using the revised taxonomy to develop experiential learning strategies. Developments in Business Simulations and Experiential Learning, 32, 348- 356.
Education Ministry of the Islamic Republic of Iran (2011). Fundamental reform document of education in the Islamic Republic of Iran. http://dca.razaviedu.ir/files/posts/24364.pdf.
Furst, E. J. (1981). Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives for the cognitive domain: Philosophical and educational issues. Review of Educational Research, 51(4), 441-453.
Genesee, F. (2001). Evaluation. In R. Carter, & D. Nunan (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages (pp.144-150). Cambridge University Press.
Gotcher, D. (2012). A précis of the taxonomy. Retrieved August 10, 2013, from the World Wide Web: http://authorityresearch.com/201001%20A%20precis%20of%20Blooms%20Taxonomy.html
Hanna, W. (2007). The new Bloom’s taxonomy: Implications for music education. Arts Education Policy Review, 108(4), 7-16.
Krathwohl, D. (2002). A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(4), 212-218.
Malmir, A., & Bagheri, M. (2019). Instructors and learners’ attitudes about English for science and technology: Learning and target needs of mechanical engineering students. Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes (IJEAP), 8(1), 17-34.
Marzano, R., & Kendall, J. (2007). The new taxonomy of educational objectives (2nd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Mizbani, M., & Chalack, A. (2017a). Analyzing listening and speaking activities of Iranian EFL textbook Prospect 3 through Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 8(3), 38-43.
Mizbani, M., & Chalack, A. (2017b). Analyzing reading and writing activities of Iranian EFL textbook Prospect 3 based on Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 4(2), 13-27.
McDonough, J., & Shaw, C. (2003). Materials and methodology in ELT: A teacher’s guide. Blackwell Publishing.
Ndura, E. (2004). ESL and cultural bias: An analysis of elementary through high school textbooks in the Western United States of America. Language, Culture, and Curriculum, 17(2), 143-153.
Noble, T. (2004). Integrating the revised Bloom’s taxonomy with multiple intelligences: A planning tool for curriculum differentiation. Teachers College Record, 106(1), 193–211.
Olimat, M. (2015). Analyzing action pack textbooks’ questions according to the Revised Taxonomy. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(28), 152-159.
Pickard, M. J. (2007). The new Bloom’s Taxonomy: An overview for family and consumer sciences. Journal of Family and Consumer Sciences Education, 25(1), 45-55.
Rashid, R. A., & Hashim, R. A. (2008). The relationship between critical thinking and language proficiency of Malaysian undergraduates. Proceedings of the EDU-COM International Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education: Directions for change (pp. 373-384). Edith Cowan University.
Razmjoo, S., & Kazempourfard, E. (2012). On the representation of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy in Interchange Course books. The Journal of Teaching Language Skills (JTLS), 4(1), 171-204.
Riazi, M., & Mosalanejad, N. (2010). Evaluation of learning objectives in Iranian high school and pre-university English textbooks using Bloom’s taxonomy. TESL-EJ, 13(4).
Richards, J. C. (2001). Curriculum development in language teaching. Cambridge University Press.
Roberts, J. T. (1996). Demystifying materials evaluation. System, 24(3), 375-389.
Seddon, G. M. (1978). The properties of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives for the cognitive domain. Review of Educational Research, 48(2), 303-23.
Sheldon, L. (1988). Evaluating ELT textbooks and materials. ELT Journal, 42(4), 237-246.
Sifakis, N. C., Lopriore, L., Dewey, M., Bayyurt, Y., Vettorel, P., Cavalheiro, L., Siqueira, D. S. P. & Kordia, S. (2018). ELF-awareness in ELT: Bringing together theory and practice. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 7(1), 155-209.
Wheeler, D. (2007). Using a summative assessment alignment model and the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to improve curriculum development, instruction and evaluation [Doctoral dissertation]. Syracuse University. Available online at ProQuest database.
Zareian, G., Davoudi, M., Heshmatifar, Z., & Rahimi, J. (2015). An evaluation of questions in two ESP course books based on Bloom’s new taxonomy of cognitive learning domain. International Journal of Education and Research3(8), 313-326.‏