Taxonomy (What it is and examples)

The taxonomy is the science that studies the principles, methods and purposes of classification. This term is used especially in biology to refer to an orderly and hierarchical classification of living beings and in education to order and design learning objectives.

This word is formed with the Greek terms ταξις (taxis‘arrangement’) and νομος (nomos, ‘norm’, ‘rule’).

Taxonomy in learning theory

In learning theory, taxonomy serves to classify educational objectives to more effectively design and evaluate the objectives set in a study program. The most used taxonomy of educational objectives is the one proposed by the American educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom (1913-1999) known as Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

Bloom’s Taxonomy or simply called Taxonomy of educational objectives is a classification of the objectives of an educational action and serves as a starting point for the design of learning objectives. It is named after the educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom (1913-1999).

The objectives are classified according to the dimension to which they correspond, dividing them into:

Cognitive domain: 6 levels are distinguished: knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
affective domain: the levels of reception, response, assessment, organization and characterization are considered.
Psychomotor domain: the levels of perception, disposition, mechanism, complex response, adaptation and creation are established.

In this sense, verbs are used that will help design educational objectives according to the domain and level that is to be defined.

To do this, the verbs for the objectives used in the cognitive domain, for example, can be: know, understand, apply, analyze, synthesize, evaluate and their synonyms.

For objectives in the affective domain, the verbs can be used: receive, respond, value, organize, characterize and their synonyms.

Finally, for the objectives within the psychomotor domain, the verbs can be used: understand, dispose, adapt, create, elaborate, respond and their synonyms.

Marzano’s Taxonomy

Marzano’s Taxonomy or New Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is a new model for classifying educational objectives. It receives this name from the educational researcher Robert Marzano (1946-).

Establishes three domains of knowledge: information, mental procedures and psychomotor procedures. In turn, 6 levels of processing are identified: recovery, understanding, analysis, use of knowledge, metacognitive system and internal system.

Taxonomy in biology

Biological taxonomy classifies living beings in an orderly manner. The classification, levels or taxonomic categories are important, since they help avoid confusion between species by being governed by a universal and consensual system. In this way, it serves so that the scientific community can define without errors the living being that they intend to study or name.

Biological taxonomy is a discipline within systematic biology that studies the evolutionary and kinship relationships between species that will define taxonomic categories.

The Swedish scientist Carl von Linné (1707-1778), also called Carlos Linnaeus in Spanish, was the first to define taxonomic categories close to those we know today. From the general to the particular he defined the following categories: kingdom, phylumclass, order, family, genus and species.

See also Species.

Taxonomic categories

Taxonomic categories are the different levels or ranges of hierarchies that occur in a classification system. Taxa or groups are established in a hierarchical structure of inclusion, that is, a group is subordinate or belongs to a broader category and in turn includes other smaller groups.

The taxonomic categories that are usually used in biology are 8. The first is the domain (three types are considered: archaea, bacteria and eukaryote).

Depending on the type of domain, subdivisions are created from the rest of the categories: kingdom (for example: protist, fungus…), phylum or division (for example: arthropod, echinoderm…), class (mammal, insect , bird, reptile, for example), order (primates, galliformes, volvocals…), family (canids, hominids, grasses, legumes), genus (Homo) and species (Homo sapiens).

See also Classification of living beings into domains and kingdoms

Examples of taxonomic categories

dog taxonomy

The dog, understood generically as a domestic dog, is from the eukaryotic domain, belongs to the animal kingdom, phylum: chordata (subphylum: vertebrata), class: mammal, order: carnivorous, family: canids, genus: Canis and species: Canise lupus.

Taxonomy of the human being

The human being is from the eukaryotic domain, belongs to the animal kingdom, phylum: chordata (subphylum: vertebrata), class: mammal, order: primate, family: hominid, genus: Homo and species: Homo sapiens.

See also:

Taxonomy in nursing

In nursing, it is common to use as a reference the so-called NANDA taxonomy, which categorizes the diagnosis in Nursing.

The following 13 domains are established that allow diagnoses to be classified in this area: health promotion, nutrition, elimination and exchange, activity and rest, perception and cognition, self-perception, roles and relationships, sexuality, coping and tolerance to stress, vital principles , security and protection, comfort and finally growth and development.

See also Nursing.