Promoting Cognitive Complexity in Graduate Written Work

When I saw the title for this week’s article, I was a little uncomfortable, as this topic seemed a little too close for comfort, perhaps a little too relevant to the literature review we’re handing in during class this week. I wondered: Is Dr. Baker trying to send an indiscreet message? Has my work thus far been shallow and “lacking in critical thinking,” as the author labels much of graduate student work? As I continued reading, though, I realized that this article was probably not a vindictive subliminal message from Dr. Baker, but rather, a good resource to use when evaluating the group wiki projects, which I believe we’re planning to do in class tonight. I found the discussion of Bloom’s taxonomy really interesting. Although I’m familiar with the framework, I’ve never really applied it to a specific project, so the author’s specific descriptions of each level of taxonomy as they apply to literature reviews was really helpful. I especially liked the description of the highest level of the taxonomy, evaluation, which includes papers that are “organized thematically and present convincing and well-thought-out arguments that are well grounded in the literature”, as well as “analyze the source articles for strengths and limitations and include objective critiques of the quality of source information” (Granello, 2001, p. 299). In analyzing our group’s wiki through this lens, I don’t think that we’ve quite reached this level of analysis, and because our paper is still in rough draft form, I think that’s okay. The information presented in the article certainly gives me a better sense of how we might strengthen our current project and the evaluation level is certainly one that I think we would aspire to reach. I also enjoyed examining the literature review and group project through the lens of Bloom’s Taxonomy, as I think the project itself is designed so that we progress through the various steps in the taxonomy. For instance, our initial individual article search began at the knowledge level and progressed through comprehension and application as we fleshed out which topics were most relevant and which articles were the best quality overall for our group paper. We moved on to analysis and synthesis in the last few weeks as we combined all of our articles to create one group literature review. Fortunately, the assignment itself directed us to explore a number of questions, such as the interventions which work with our group, the unique needs of the population, evidence-based practices, and a theoretical foundation, so we automatically organized our review thematically (which is evidence of being in the evaluation stage!), but I do not think we’ve been very critical of our sources. This is an improvement we can explore for our final draft. Granello, D. (2001). "Promoting Cognitive Complexity in Graduate Written Work: Using Bloom's Taxonomy as a Pedagogical Tool to Improve Literature Reviews." Counselor Education & Supervision, Volume 40, pages 292-207.