Content Analysis of 12th Grade History Textbook Questions in the Humanities Major Based on Bloom's Cognitive Domain Components

Abstract
The 12th-grade Humanities textbook "History of Iran and the Contemporary World" is the closest to adolescents' identity components. Therefore, examining this book's content and relevance to correct learning and realizing "high-level thinking" is a fundamental necessity. The present study has examined and analyzed the cognitive content of sample questions in this book's lessons based on Bloom's Taxonomy. It was organized within the framework of Bloom's cognitive domain and content analysis of questions in the 12th-grade humanities textbook. The research findings show that the sample questions of the 12th-grade history book are mainly in the early levels of the cognitive domain, namely "knowledge" and "understanding. Those questions are in the form of the domains of analysis, synthesis, and reproduction, i.e., questions related to "higher level thinking," have "dynamic," "creative," and "active" aspects despite their low proportion; and the evaluation level has an appropriate quantitative range compared to other higher level thinking levels and has been able to measure "higher level thinking" in challenging students' knowledge. The results of the research show that for history lessons, questions from the areas of synthesis, evaluation (comparison), and innovation with "open answers" are necessary, and memory-based questions at low levels of the cognitive domain should be strictly avoided, as they will lead to boredom with history lessons.
Keywords: 12th-grade history book, Bloom's taxonomy, cognitive domain, higher-order thinking.
Introduction
The 12th-grade history textbook is the most fundamental in the humanities. It is noteworthy that this book has been designed and written within the framework of the approach and goals of the transformation documents - the Fundamental Transformation Document and the National Curriculum Document - and in line with previous books. The Fundamental Transformation Document of Education is the roadmap for the country's education and training system in the year 1404. The history curriculum and textbook emphasize the development of historical literacy skills, historical awareness, and historical identity. Now that only one step remains until 1404, reviewing the educational system and assessing the achievement of goals related to the Fundamental Transformation and National Curriculum documents is a priority. Two important principles of the National Curriculum Document, Section 4-4 Teaching-Learning: “Learning is the result of the learner’s creative, purposeful, and active interaction with diverse learning environments.” Also, Section 5-4 Evaluation: “It continuously provides a clear and comprehensive picture of the student’s current situation, his distance from the next situation, and how to correct it by his capacities and needs” (ibid. Section 5-4, row 1) are of interest here.
Material & Methods
The unit studied in this study is the questions in the 12th-grade history textbook in the humanities, and the research method is the descriptive content analysis based on the theoretical framework of Bloom's taxonomy of learning based on cognitive levels. Therefore, the present article attempts to examine the questions of the 12th Human History Textbook and identify the cognitive levels of Bloom's taxonomy and, by criticizing it, to reach the effectiveness of the knowledge and epistemological system of the book's content in the mental growth and excellence of students and its dynamics. This research emphasizes the "cognitive" field, which is related to the processes that deal with human cognition and thought. This field consists of six main levels: knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and reproduction. The final evaluation of the analysis of the 12th-grade history textbook questions in the humanities based on Bloom's cognitive levels is as follows: Of the 64 questions in the twelve lessons of the book, all cognitive levels have been assigned percentages. The two primary levels, namely "knowledge" and "understanding," have a total of 68 percent of the questions; the total cognitive levels of the questions are divided into the areas of "knowledge" with 12 questions (18/31), "understanding" with 32 questions (50 percent, i.e. half of the questions), and the third level, "applying" with 2 questions (3/125), "analyzing and reviewing" with 1 question (1/5), "combining" with 2 questions (3/125), "evaluating" with 14 questions (21/87), and "recreating" with 1 question (1/5).
Discussion & Result 
As can be seen, out of the total 64 questions in the 12th-grade history textbook, the two primary cognitive levels of Bloom, namely knowledge and understanding, have the largest volume of questions, namely 44 questions, which means that nearly 70 percent of the questions in the 12th-grade history textbook are related to the areas of knowledge and understanding. Therefore, the focus of the questions at the end of the lesson is on memory, memorization, explanation and description, and understanding the content of the book. The application level has only two questions, which shows that the questions do not have a practical and functional approach to history. The questions asked at the analysis and synthesis levels have a smaller scope, so the analysis level has one share and the synthesis level has two shares of the questions. However, the evaluation level is relatively more favorable and ranked third. With 14 items, this level has about 22 percent of the questions. This is a clear point on education based on high-level thinking, and the more the number of these types of questions increases, the more interest, mobility, dynamism, and mental activity of students will arise. The highest level of thinking, raised in the revision of Bloom's cognitive program under the title of re-creation and creativity, has only been allocated one question. This shows that the highest level of Bloom's cognitive domain, namely re-creation and creativity, has not been given due attention.
 Conclusion    
Through questions related to the evaluation level, it is easy to design creativity-oriented questions and test the imagination and creativity of students. Through acquiring historical awareness, we will witness the growth of students' identities. Finally, suggestions are provided for achieving high-level thinking in the history class. Including designing questions that include multiple levels of higher cognitive thinking 2- Free research 3- Designing questions based on group activity 4- Questions in the field of field activity and observation of historical monuments 5- Designing partial questions that can be completed with the help of the student 6- Role-playing instead of historical figures 7- Questioning the student's decision-making in international situations 8- Creating a crisis in international situation by the student 9- Inferring from several national and international situations and combining them.