Application of bloom's taxonomy for competence gap analysis in curriculum development

Abstract

Since its inception as a bank of keywords measuring the same educational objective to facilitate the exchange of test items among faculty at various universities, Bloom's taxonomy has served as the keystone in educational development. Its six-level cognitive domain has been commonly used for set learning outcomes, comparing similar courses, and congruence the elements of a course. This paper presents its potential for identifying competence gaps to support curriculum development. For each factor, graduates' expected competence (desired) and prepared competence (actual) are assessed by using the six-level cognitive domain, and their gap is determined from their difference. This approach has been applied to the Erasmus Plus Capacity Building in Higher Education project on Curriculum Development of Master's Degree Program in Industrial Engineering for Thailand Sustainable Smart Industry (MSIE 4.0) to ensure that the new curriculum will produce graduates with profiles matching the needs of the industry to minimize the gaps. Since the Master's graduates are expected to be able to perform beyond the remember level (lowest level), only the five higher levels were used. The results show that competence gaps could be revealed clearly and were resourceful for setting the strategy for the development of the curriculum.