Original opinion: the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy to teach and assess the skill of the psychiatric formulation during vocational training

Abstract

Objectives: This paper proposes the use of the cognitive domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy, an educational classification system, to guide the critical thinking required for the composition of the psychiatric formulation during the various stages of specialist training. Conclusions: Bloom’s Taxonomy offers a hierarchical, structured approach to clinical reasoning. Use of this method can assist supervisors and trainees to understand better the concepts of and offer a developmental approach to critical reasoning. Application of the Taxonomy, using cognitive ‘action words’ (verbs) within each of the levels, can promote increasing sophistication in the construction of the psychiatric formulation. Examples of how the Taxonomy can be adapted to design educational resources are suggested in the article.