Bloom’s Taxonomy And OBE: Manifestation Of Reductionism In Malaysian Education
Reductionism has been a cause of concern for many thinkers and scholars. It has been attributed to the degradation of several key institutions in modern society such as economy, science, politics and education. This paper investigates the presence of reductionism in its rogue form, or ‘wild reductionism’, in Malaysian Education. Two key concepts have been identified as the vessel for reductionism, namely Bloom’s taxonomy and Outcome Based Education as interpreted by the Malaysian Engineering Education Council and adopted by many institutions. Reductionism is evident in the paradigmatic conception in these two concepts. Issues and criticisms arising out of their adoptions are presented. It is evident that the criticisms against both have been ignored by educators and policy makers in drafting the education ecosystem.
Introduction
Bloom’s Taxonomy and Outcome based
Education is currently adopted as the basis of Malaysian education framework.
Amidst general embrace and adoption of these mechanisms, signs of unwanted
impacts are evident. These problems resemble the symptoms of reductionism
recognised elsewhere in politics, economy, science, and technology. Various
issues in education, such as the decline of the nation’s PISA score, non
attendance of candidates for SPM exams, complex pedagogy and inappropriate
complexity, high educator’s workload, among others, are hotly debated. It is
not the intention of this essay to dwell on these issues. We know the problems.
People talked about it, although there seems to be apathy on the supply side. Nevertheless
if we care to look deeper into these, we will find that the ills and maladies
are just a manifestation of a deep rooted belief in the modern mind. It is a
crisis of perception[1]. It is
a systemic problem[2]. It is
not an administrative, not a strategic, not even an operational problem. It is
a crisis of paradigm. It is the problem of our worldviews and sprung out of
misplaced emphasis on specific parts of modern philosophy. Specifically it is the result of unbounded fascination with reductionism, a
paradigm so pervasive and dominant since the age of enlightenment in Europe.
One key characteristic of reductionism that results in this dilemma is the
fragmentation of perceptions, rendering our problem solving skills ineffective
and chaotic.
It is necessary at this juncture to clarify
on the use of the term reductionism in this writing. Reductionism is an
important human trait. It is a necessary cognitive framework that propels
humanity into the age of scientific discovery and technological progress. However,
it is not something new. It has been around since the dawn of man, where it is
useful when man went hunting for prey, or whenever he is focused on extracting
benefit from the natural world. From a neuroscience perspective, Iain
Mcgilchrist attributed it to the left brain processing[3]. Nevertheless, in the grand
scheme of human existence, it should serve as an emissary to the master, that
is the holistic way of thinking often
attributed to the right brain operation. However the term ‘wild reductionism’
used here refers to the unbounded adoption of its use regardless of context, an
overdose[4]. Or, as
explained by Mcgilchrist, it has become a master instead of an emissary. For
the sake of brevity, the term reductionism is used elsewhere in this writing.
The problem of fragmented perceptions we
see in the current education system, have parallel in many other aspects of
civilisation: economy, politics, business, religion, health etc. They all seem
to have myriads of crises in different scales strewn about the whole modern
society. They are reflected all over communities and countries all over the
world. The economy runs havoc and deplete resources, causing global warming and
related environmental disasters, widening prosperity gaps between nations and
between rich and poor. There are political frictions due to power and resource
grabbing, hurtling nations towards war and skirmishes, apathy of governments
towards the plight of citizens, and so on. Every party believes it is doing the
right thing, but in their limited own understanding and focus, resulting in
conflicting and contrasting results. These can all be summed up as the symptoms
of reductionism: chaotic fragmentations of human faculties of perception,
resulting in the loss of understanding of richness of phenomena, elimination of
humanness and inability to have a big picture mentality in establishing truth.
The precursor
to modern reductionism is often attributed to Renee Descartes, a French
philosopher of the 16th Century. This can be summarised as the belief that
reality can be understood by its constituent components. Here we can already
see that this is the basis of scientific thinking. It is the beloved child of
modernity. It has produced wonders, it propelled man to the moon, it cures
diseases as well as creates cataclysmic weapons. It is super powerful. As such
it is adored beyond its true worth. And therein lies the problem.
The flaw of reductionist thinking can often
be summed up by the statement that the whole is more than a sum of its parts.
By adding notes and rhythm, a musician can produce a masterpiece instead of
just a collection of sound and noise. A canvas and several color paints in the
hand of an artist will turn into an amazing painting that can move people. The
outcome can never be predicted from the size and types of canvas, or the
chemical properties of the paints. Its value cannot be inferred from the
physical properties of its constituent. If you detach the subjective quality of
an object, it loses its value, meaning and significance. Yet this is what
reductionism does, it surgically removes the metaphysical properties of a
phenomenon and focuses on its physical part, and then proceed to dissect the
pehnomenon into isolated fragments, obscuring the interconnectedness of
phenomena. Its wholesale adoption in the whole spectrum of human endeavour
results in the loss of touch with reality.
Crises of
Reductionism in Literature
Due to this shortcoming, scholars and
scientists from various backgrounds have highlighted the drawbacks and harm of
this way of thinking. The study of complex dynamic systems has uncovered a
fundamental flaw in this method, as South African philosopher Paul Cilliers
discussed in his 1998 book:
A complex system is not constituted merely by the sum
of its components, but also by the intricate relationships between these
components. By “cutting up” a system, the reductionist method destroys that
which it is trying to understand.[5]
Fritjoff Capra, a leading physicist himself
argues that the reductionist paradigm has led to
fragmented thinking, which in turn has caused a disconnection from the holistic
nature of reality. He believes that the
ills of the modern world, war, hunger, environmental degradation are the
results of the reductionist worldview.[6]
Vandana Shiva is an Indian scholar,
environmental activist, and author known for her work in the fields of ecology,
agriculture, and sustainability. Shiva puts forward the view that reductionism
is not only the basis of the technology of war, violence and wild capitalism,
it is even a violent ideology that tears apart human knowledge through
epistemological politics. She stated that the violence done by reductionism is
in four forms: violence against the subject of science, violence against the
object of knowledge, Violence against recipients of knowledge and violence
against knowledge itself[7].
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, a prominent
Malaysian scholar, in various works of his, referred to reductionism as a
“dajjalic cognitive framework”, discussing how reductionist thinking can lead
to a fragmented understanding of reality that is at odds with a more
integrated, Islamic worldview.[8]
Reductionism in education
A significant literature can be found on
the effect of reductionism in education. Peter Senge, a prominent system
thinker, addressed the issues surrounding reductionism:
Today, I believe our traditional consensus regarding
the goals and processes of public education leaves us dangerously vulnerable in
a world of increasing interdependence. We have all been taught to break apart
complex problems and fix the pieces. Our traditional education process —
indeed, our theory of knowledge in the West — is based on reductionism,
fragmenting complex phenomena into component parts and building up knowledge of
the parts. Moreover, our traditional system is based on competition and
individual learning.[9]
Terry Wrigley criticise reductionism in educational theory for several
reasons: oversimplification, neglect of context, mechanistic view of learning
and lack of holistic understanding[10]. He
also concluded that reductionist approaches can lead to educational policies
that prioritize standardized testing and measurable outcomes over meaningful
learning experiences, ultimately harming the quality of education.
An emergent characteristic of reductionism
in education is the rising trend of mechanisation, which is driven by economic
factors. This argument is presented by Sancar, who contends that neoliberalism
prioritizes market-driven approaches, resulting in the commodification of
education. He highlights how this shift leads to increased standardization, a
focus on quantifiable outcomes, and the marginalization of critical thinking
and creativity in curricula.[11]
To identify the presence of reductionism in
Malaysian education, several key characteristics of the ecosystem will be
discussed here. These are manifestations of reductionism in the forms of
methodology, processes, operational strategies and mechanisms. As such, people
rarely see the ‘isms’ behind these manifestations.
Bloom’s taxonomy
The first manifestation is the wide
adoption of Bloom’s Taxonomy as the framework for developing the education
ecosystem. Bloom’s taxonomy, was first introduced in the publication Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The
Classification of Educational Goals[12].
Here the reductionist approach to education is evident. It fragmentise learning
objectives into three broad domains: cognitive (knowledge-based), affective
(emotion-based), and psychomotor (action-based), each with a hierarchy of
skills and abilities. These domains are used by educators to structure
curricula, assessments, and teaching methods to foster different types of
learning.
A
rising trend with the adoption of Bloom's Taxonomy in educational
settings is the use of mechanisation in education, particularly with the rise
of technology-enhanced learning environments. Bloom's Taxonomy provides a
framework for categorizing educational goals. Educators often use this
framework to design assessments that can be easily automated. For instance,
multiple-choice quizzes and online assessments can be aligned with the
different levels of Bloom's taxonomy (e.g., knowledge, comprehension, application),
allowing for efficient grading and data collection. Another mechanisation due
to the adoption of Bloom’s taxonomy is the development of Learning Management
Systems (LMS). Many LMS incorporate Bloom's Taxonomy to structure courses and
assessments. With the framework, many aspects of education can be tweaked in a
mechanical way. It can be concluded that the framework's influence on
assessment, curriculum development, and the integration of technology in
teaching and learning processes clearly supports the trend toward mechanization
in education.
Outcome Based Education
A derivative out of Bloom’s Taxonomy is
outcome based learning, widely known as OBE (Outcome Based Education). At the
outset, the reductionists tendency can be clearly identified. The basic
approach is to reduce and fragment the concept of education into a series of
focused, measurable outcomes. Since early 2004 the interest in Outcome-Based
Education (OBE) began to emerge with several engineering education providers in
Malaysia. It is interesting to look into the rationale behind the adoption of
OBE. The providers realised the problem of several gaps found in traditional
engineering curriculum.
The thinking at that time was to fill up the gaps found in the six
categories with several courses. If communication skills are found to be
lacking, then there should be such a course in the curriculum. If the
curriculum is lacking in thinking skill, then a thinking skill course would be
included. This was what was meant by a well orchestrated curriculum. However,
in reality the synchronization or integration was found not to be there. [13]
This pushes them to search for a way that
straddles the gaps. OBE was deemed to be an answer to this problem. Ironically,
the positivists outlook of OBE does not exclude reductionism which essentially
fragmentise the phenomena, in fact it clearly breaks learning experience into
few objective outcome statements. This tendency to reduce phenomena to few
outcomes reflect positivist methodological reductionism in OBE. It is interesting
to note the irony here. To solve the problem of gaps in a traditionally
fragmented education, they adopt a reductionist mechanism which enforces
fragmentation at a higher level. Yet somehow this irony escapes them.
Another outcome of reductionism which is
not exclusive to education is the rise of bureaucracy. Due to the need to
measure performance, and the introduction of many indicators, excessive
recording, documenting and reportings, starts to occupy a major portion of
educators’ workload..
Symptoms ignored
The nature of the reductionist tendency in
Bloom's Taxonomy and OBE warrant cautionary approach in their adoptions to an
educational system. A growing opinion is that both result in less than
satisfactory performance in education.
The basic premise of Bloom’s taxonomy, that
there is a hierarchy of cognitive skills, has been rejected by many. Ron Berger
wrote:
It (OBE) also gives the mistaken impression that some of these
skills are more difficult and more important than others. It can blind us to
the integrated process that actually takes place in students’ minds as they
learn[14].
Flaws in the impact of implementing
hierarchical models of knowledge have also been highlighted. Roland Case
identified 3 flaws in Bloom’s Taxonomy. It lowers expectation for thinking, it
encourages transmission of information rather than genuine analytical ability,
and it creates false confidence.[15]
Another problem with cognitive hierarchy is
the lowering of status between “remembering” and “evaluating”. This pose a problem
when it is assumed that more time should be spent in teaching evaluation skill
rather than acquiring information. The quality of evaluation in students in
fact correlate positively with the amount of information internalised.[16]
With the advent of AI, these flaws in
Bloom’s taxonomy have been identified as problematic. The categorisation of
cognitive skills with its hierarchy is misleading when it is embedded in Large
Language Learning (LLM), the rational syntax used in AI.[17]
OBE is not free from its fair share of
criticisms. In 1994, a report by Center of the American Experiment on OBE stated that:
But this apparent good idea (OBE) has led to considerable conflict.
A major reason for this conflict is that states turned over the task of
defining outcomes to the educational officials most threatened by the process.
Educators have proceeded to promote rather vague outcomes, often reflecting
politically correct positions, instead of knowledge, skills, and cognitive
academic outcomes. Education bureaucrats have taken a sensible idea and
distorted its meaning so that accountability is virtually impossible.[18]
Here it can be inferred that one of the
core issues in OBE is WHO gets to decide the outcomes. It can be argued that
ideally, a carefully selected group of ‘wise elders’ would concoct balanced
outcomes for an education system. However as always in the real world, ideals
seldom materialised. There is no clear criteria for the people who get to make
that decision. Most likely, as pointed above, the group would consist of those
high in the rank of administrators. These are not necessarily ‘wise’
individuals although their ability to climb high in bureaucratic rank is
undeniable.
In Australia, the introduction of OBE in
2006 was widely contested on the grounds that OBE is conceptually flawed,
difficult to implement and substandard when compared to either what is termed a
syllabus or a standards model of curriculum development.[19]
Beyond rhetorics, the concern can be also
argued in a pragmatic term. The world in 2024 as we know it is characterized by
rapid changes and unpredictability, commonly termed as VUCA[20]. An education that is
sluggish in response to these dynamics runs the risk of being obsolete soon
enough. In Malaysia, the development of any new curriculum has to adopt the
nationally mandated outcomes by the Malaysian Quality Assurance (MQA) agency.
The OBE mechanism developed by the engineers entails the need to meticulously
map the connection between Program Outcome (PO), Learning (LO)Outcome, course
learning outcome (CLO). And to ensure its effectiveness, there are specific
ways assessment should be weighed against the stated outcomes. Due to this, the
process can take as long as two and up to three years. Once in place, the
curriculum, rigged with these stringent requirements and mechanisms[21], will
have to be adhered to religiously for the next three to five years. By the end
of the cycle, the curriculum would have been operated on a paradigm eight years
old. Whereas in the VUCA era, the world changes at a pace of months, not years.
Therefore, obsolete curricula is the real outcome of Malaysian style OBE
implementation.
A more damaging criticism on OBE is its
impact on creativity and other soft skills of learners. In that it effectively
sidelined these skills, the very traits it claims to foster in its
implementation. In an essay by John Senior, the Head of General Education at
Skyline University College, he poignantly summed up the impact of OBE:
The problem with this is that there are only so many hours in a
course and those outcomes must be mastered within that time. With time used up achieving “measurable” outcomes, less measurable, but
higher- order learning - like creativity, thinking skills, divergent thinking,
even social, practical, and artistic learning take second place, or are not
learned at all. Worse, and perhaps the key problem, is that outcomes are often
treated as a one-shoe-fits-all solution by administrators who are trying to
satisfy institutional licensure and program review requirements which have
little to do with actual learning.[22]
The other symptom arising out of
reductionism, as has been stated earlier, is the rise of bureaucracy. A study
in implementing OBE at Malaysian Vocational Colleges shows an increment in teacher’s
commitment needed to implement it.[23] My own
experience in the organisation is that the bureaucratic load of OBE
implementation has a stifling effect on creativity, freedom to think and loss
of natural curiosity due to the overwhelming need to fill out forms, checklists
and mapping subjects to outcomes, requirements in teaching plan and stringent
curriculum structure.
Reductionism’s autoimmune defense mechanism
A question should be asked at this point.
Why the overwhelming and wide adoption of these reductionistic manifestations
in the Malaysian education scenario? Despite the exhaustive problems and
cautions raised over these reductionist mechanism, there seems to be a wholesale
embrace and vigourous push to implement them. A cursory browsing would reveal a
high number of writings upholding and promoting the use of Bloom's taxonomy and
OBE largely coming from developing countries like Malaysia. There seems to be
ignorance on the drawbacks and pitfalls of these two mechanisms on our part.
The attraction of apparent efficiency ideals upheld by people from disciplines
such as engineering and business seems to have infected the education theorists
and administrators.
Ironically this particular propagation of
reductionist paradigms is enforced by reductionism itself. The reductionist
tendency to focus on linear, small scope and fragmented objectives has
literally put blinders in our mind that these mechanisms are the best answer
out there, ignoring the symptoms and criticisms highlighted elsewhere. It
seems, the reductionist mentality creates an autoimmune system where the
reductionist mindset itself is the defense mechanism against its criticisms and
flaws and ensures its rapid adoption in the Malaysian education ecosystem.
Conclusion
Reductionism, while being an important
cognitive framework that helped humanity, has been growing so wild that some
modern crises began to be identified as the results of its overuse. It is
evident from the study that reductionism, a paradigmatic concept, has creeped
into the Malaysian education system at an operational level by two mechanisms,
namely Bloom’s Taxonomy and Outcome Based Education. Risk of hindering creativity,
flawed constructs of human skill, the rise of bureaucracy are among the core
problems identified. Another problem in Malaysia is the slow process of
drafting an OBE rigged curriculum which may result in its obsolescence in a
fast changing world.
Notes and references:
[1] This proposition can be found in the work
of Marshall McLuhan’s work such as “Understanding Media: The extension of Man
(1964)
[2] A sentiment expressed by many thinkers
such as Naomi Klein, David Harvey, Peter Senge, Russel Ackoff and many more.
[3] McGilchrist, I. (2009). The Master and His Emissary: The Divided
Brain and the Making of the Western World. Yale University Press.
[4] A public talk by the author titled”
Reductionism overdose in Malaysian Education”, presented in an online seminar.
Wacana Intelektual. Organiser PEKA, UPSI. July 11th 2024.
[5] CIlliers, P. Complexity and
Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems. Routledge. London 1998.
[6] Capra, F. The Turning Point: Science
Society and The Rising Culture. Simon & Schuster. 1982
[7] Shiva V., Reductionist science as epistemological violence in in Science, hegemony and violence. Ed Ashis Nandy, Oxford University Press Bombay Calcutta
MadraS 1988
[8] An example of this discussion can be found
in his work such as "The Concept of Education in Islam"* "Islam and Secularism"* - which
critiques modern secularism and its cognitive frameworks.
[9] Senge, Peter M. The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations Are Working
Together to Create a Sustainable World. Crown Business, 2008
[10] Wrigley, T. .Education and the complexities of learning. London: Routledge.2000.
[11] Sancar C., Sancar M., Neoliberal
Mechanisation Of Education, The Turkish Online Journal of Educational
Technology – July 2012, volume 11 Issue 3
[12] Bloom, B. S.; Engelhart, M. D.; Furst, E.
J.; Hill, W. H.; Krathwohl, D. R. (1956). Taxonomy
of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Vol.
Handbook I: Cognitive domain. New York: David McKay Company.
[13] A.A. Aziz*, M.J. Megat Mohd Noor, A.A.
Abang Ali and M.S. Jaafar. A Malaysian
Outcome-Based Engineering Education Model. International Journal of
Engineering and Technology, Vol. 2, No.1, 2005, pp. 14-21
[14] Berger, R. (2018) Here’s What’s Wrong With Bloom’s Taxonomy: A Deeper Learning
Perspective. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-heres-whats-wrong-with-blooms-taxonomy-a-deeper-learning-perspective/2018/03#
[15] Case, R. The Unfortunate Consequences of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Social Education
77(4), pp 196–200 ©2013 National Council for the Social Studies
[16] Bradley Busch, (ed) Be wary of pyramids: The problem with Bloom,
Dale and Maslow. Online articcle. https://www.innerdrive.co.uk/blog/pyramids-bloom-dale-maslow/#:~:text=What's%20the%20problem%20with%20Bloom's,higher%20value%20than%20the%20former. Accessed on 27/12/2024.
[17] Luke Zaphir, Dale Hansen The trouble with Bloom’s taxonomy in an age
of AI. Online article. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/trouble-blooms-taxonomy-age-ai
[18] Manno, Bruno V. Outcome-Based Education. Has It Become More Affliction than Cure?
Center of the American Experiment, Minneapolis, MN. Aug 94.
[19]Kevin Donnelly, Australia's
adoption of outcomes based education: A critique. Issues in Educational
Research, 17(2), 2007
[20] Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and
Ambiguity.
[21] Being born out of engineering discipline,
Malaysian OBE is characterized by countless tables, checklists and tick boxes
and mapping mechanism which can be dragging.
[22] Senior, J. Does Outcomes-Based Education do More Harm than Good?. Online
article 27 Dec 2020 https://www.skylineuniversity.ac.ae/knowledge-update/from-different-corners/does-outcomes-based-education-do-more-harm-than-good
[23], M.A.A.Damit, M. K. Omar, M.H.M Puad, Issues and Challenges of Outcome-based
Education (OBE) Implementation among Malaysian Vocational College Teachers. Academic
Research in Business and Social Sciences. Vol. 1 1 , No. 3, 202
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