◄Back

# Long description

Figure 4 lists six sets of thinking skills and puts them in order of cognitive demand. The title for each set of thinking skills is followed by a list of relevant actions. They are ranked from lower order thinking skills at the bottom of the diagram to higher-order thinking skills at the top. A wide arrow can be seen behind the text starting at the bottom and pointing upwards beyond the top of the text.

First, there is ‘remembering’, which includes recalling information, recognising, listing, describing, retrieving, naming and finding. Then there is ‘understanding’, which includes explaining ideas or concepts, interpreting, summarising, paraphrasing, classifying and explaining.

Thirdly, there is ‘applying’, which includes using information in another familiar situation, implementing, carrying out, using and executing. The fourth set is entitled ‘analysing’ and includes breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships, comparing, organising, deconstructing, interrogating and finding.

Fifth is ‘evaluating’, which includes justifying a decision or course of action, checking, hypothesising, critiquing, experimenting and judging. Finally, ‘creating’ might involve generating new ideas, products or ways of viewing things, designing, constructing, planning, producing and inventing.

To the left-hand side of the hierarchical list is a bracket around the top three sets of thinking skills: creating, evaluating and analysing. These are described with a label that reads ‘higher-order thinking skills’.