Alignment of the Turkish 11th grade philosophy skill-based activity book with Bloom's revised taxonomy

This study examines the alignment of the assessment tools included in the 11th Grade Philosophy Skill-Based Activity Book prepared by the Turkish Ministry of National Education with the Cognitive Process Dimension of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (BRT). Conducted within a qualitative research framework using document analysis, the study analyzed all 115 assessment tools in the book without sampling, treating each question as an independent unit of analysis. The tools were coded according to the six cognitive process categories of BRT: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Inter-coder reliability was calculated as .91, indicating a high level of consistency. The findings reveal that assessment tools are predominantly concentrated at the understanding level (44%), while the applying level is represented at a limited rate (4%). Although 38% of the questions correspond to higher-order cognitive processes, sub-dimension diversity within these levels appears open to further development. In particular, the absence of the “organizing” sub-dimension in analyzing and the “planning” sub-dimension in creating suggests that higher-order cognitive processes could be structured in a more balanced and comprehensive manner. Overall, the cognitive distribution of the assessment tools may be further enhanced in line with the higher-order thinking skills emphasized in policy documents. Strengthening constructive alignment among curriculum goals, instructional practices, and assessment tools is recommended to improve the effectiveness of skill-based assessment.