John Biggs' SOLO taxonomy

The SOLO taxonomy stands for:



Structure of

Observed

Learning

Outcomes



It was developed by Biggs and Collis (1982), and is well described in Biggs and Tang (2007)



It describes level of increasing complexity in a student's understanding of a subject, through five stages, and it is claimed to be applicable to any subject area. Not all students get through all five stages, of course, and indeed not all teaching (and even less "training" is designed to take them all the way).



There are fairly clear links not only with Säljö on conceptions of learning, but also, in the emphasis on making connections and contextualising, with Bateson's levels of learning, and even with Bloom's taxonomy in the cognitive domain. Like my pyramidal representation of Bloom, the assumption is that each level embraces previous levels, but adds something more:



Reflection
I confess to a slight distrust of this kind of "progressive" model, which aspires inexorably to a final state. I am not convinced that every subject area fits the model, but nevertheless it is quite a good guide, and gives some idea of the place of the Gestalt insight (at the fourth, relational level). What it does not deal with is the student who establishes a relational construct which is nevertheless wrong, and those who pursue wild geese at the extended abstract level because they are insufficiently informed at more modest levels. See Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum".


However, the emerging field of work on Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge links in very effectively with the SOLO yaxonomy and offers some points about how the above issues might be addressed. Go here to follow up.

ATHERTON J S (2009) Learning and Teaching; SOLO taxonomy [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/solo.htm Accessed: 3 May 2010