Title: The Invisible Barrier: How Restrictions on Majors Influence Career Paths
Source: Strada Education Foundation
Author: Nichole Torpey-Saboe and Akua Amankwah-Ayeh
When university departments face increasing demand, many implement additional entry requirements. But this seemingly reasonable practice has far-reaching consequences for equity and workforce development, according to new research from Strada Education Foundation surveying recent college graduates.
The study found that while 67 percent of recent public four-year institution graduates considered a restricted major, only 50 percent were admitted to one. This gap translates to more than 200,000 students annually deterred from pursuing their preferred field of study—with the impact falling disproportionately on historically marginalized populations. Black graduates (27 percent) and first-generation students (22 percent) did not pursue restricted majors of interest at higher rates than the average graduate (17 percent).
A notable finding is that major restrictions operate largely outside institutional awareness. For every student formally rejected from a restricted major, four others never apply, deterred by requirements they see as difficult to meet. This “invisible barrier” effect means institutional data captures only a fraction of the impact, making it difficult for institutions to fully assess the effects of these policies.
These findings align with economic research by Zachary Bleemer and Aashish Mehta that highlights two conclusions. First, major restrictions have tripled the economic value gap between degrees earned by underrepresented minority students and their peers since the mid-1990s. Second, there is no evidence that restrictions improved educational outcomes for excluded students or enhanced the value of restricted majors for those who remained.
The most common restrictions respondents report are academic performance thresholds: out-of-department GPA requirements (42 percent), in-department GPA thresholds (33 percent), and test score requirements (29 percent). Other barriers include higher costs (15 percent), required work hours (12 percent), wait lists (9 percent), portfolio reviews (8 percent), and auditions (7 percent).
The research identifies four approaches institutions might consider:
Implement bridge programs for underrepresented students in gateway courses for high-demand majors, paired with specialized academic and career advising.
Develop alternative credential pathways through certificates, minors, and interdisciplinary programs that provide students access to skills in high-demand fields without major-specific entry barriers.
Secure funding, such as through state appropriations, to expand educational resources and capacity in high-demand departments, recognizing these programs’ higher delivery costs as well as their value.
Work with industry leaders to secure access to equipment, facilities, guest instructors, and financial support to expand capacity in resource-intensive programs.
While institutional resource constraints are real, the unintended consequences of major restrictions are reshaping student pathways in ways that affect both equity and workforce development. By implementing thoughtful alternatives, institutions can better respond to student aspirations while addressing workforce needs.
Bloom’s Taxonomy is probably the most widespread and enduringly popular model in education. It was created in 1956 by Dr. Benjamin Bloom and colleagues at the Board of Examinations, University of Chicago. In 2001, the pyramid was revised by Lorin Anderson, a student of Bloom’s, resulting in Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy.
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy focuses on learning outcomes. The framework demands that very first thing that instructors need to think about is what students have to know by the end of the course. Learning objectives need actions to get to them. And Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy is hierarchical, requiring your students to achieve each level in succession—in order to understand a concept, you must remember it; to apply a concept you must first understand it, and so on.
There’s no doubt that this way of classifying educational objectives has been extremely useful to millions of teachers over the years. But for those who might not have had conclusively positive results evaluating Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy or incorporating it into instruction, it’s worth considering some more ways to think outside the pyramid to improve teaching and learning. Here are three things you could bear in mind when using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy in your lesson planning.
1. Cultivate judgment rather than transmit information
The instructional strategies behind Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy require educators to begin with “lower order” tasks, arguing that students need to master these first. This means we front-load our courses with information: information that can be recalled, defined, identified or another objective in the lowest layer of the pyramid.
But constructivist theories of learning—and our own classroom experiences—tell us that learning does not happen through information transference alone. A learner is an not empty vessel into which we pour definitions. He or she is not going to truly understand something without interpreting it, questioning it, or relating to it.
So when designing your course, try to incorporate ways to strengthen and take advantage of their faculties of judgment.
What would it mean to cultivate judgment during a course? Start by doing. Engage your students to take action in some relevant way—through a lab experiment, for example, or by field research. Another way to do this is role-play. When I taught history, we started out by taking on the identities of various countries, coming to decisions supported by research and analysis. The historical facts—and there were many—were all taught in this context. In this way, facts are put into the service of learning, rather than becoming an initial goal in themselves.
2. Start, rather than end, with creativity
As educator Shelley Wright has pointed out, Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy gives the impression there’s a “scarcity of creativity.”1 Only those strong enough or talented enough to work their way up to the summit of the pyramid can be creative. The truth is that everybody is naturally creative—just think of a seven year-old at play—except that this way of being in the world is often squelched or squandered. Ken Robinson, for instance, has strongly argued that creativity is typically “educated out” of us.2
What could it mean to start with creativity? Have your students create on day one. (OK, maybe day two or three.) Wright explains how this works for her media studies class. Instead of beginning by laying out design principles and the history of media, she gets the students to make an advert mockup. Then they compare their mockups to published adverts. Wright helps them analyze differences and introduces, through student-facilitated research, the major principles and concepts of design that help them explain their own creation and those of others.
A create-first approach could work just as well in courses that are theory-rich and fact-heavy such as philosophy, literature, or science. In environmental science, for example, ask students to propose a solution to deforestation or ocean acidification. Then, starting from their contributions, explore the principles, factors, concepts, contingencies at play, including the ones that were omitted. Have students compare their solutions to others’. Get them to elicit the principle involved, the recent literature in the area, and articulate and fully describe the concepts and the facts.
3. Promote awareness instead of entrenching hierarchy
The stratification of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy into “lower” and “higher” order objectives sets up a value proposition. It leads educators to think that certain kinds of learning necessarily reflect superior kinds of cognition.
But as Roland Case argues, tasks at every level of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy can be performed thoughtfully or thoughtlessly.3 It is possible to defend a position in a completely superficial way. It is possible to propose a plan that lacks good judgment or analysis. It is possible to create something without building from a base of relevant knowledge. Indeed, that is why it’s necessary to practice and develop judgment, critical thinking skills and creative problem-solving.
When Anderson and Krathwohl revised Bloom’s Taxonomy, they accounted for this with a second scale for assessment called The Knowledge Dimension, which lies as another dimension or axis to the cognitive domain. One should assess each of the revised categories (Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, Create) according to whether factual, conceptual, procedural or metacognitive knowledge is demonstrated.
If no category is higher or lower than any other, then leveling makes no sense. With proper consideration for The Knowledge Dimension, we are far from a pyramid… and always have been! But who knew? As Leslie Wilson points out, “what most educators are given in training is a simple chart listing levels and related accompanying verbs.”4
Bloom’s Taxonomy revised: A pyramid alternative
And so, if we want to engage students’ creativity, cultivate judgment and make sure that each stage of learning is fully developed and attuned to the right outcome, then organizing anew the existing structure of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy could go a very long way. Instead of a pyramid, how about a mandala?
Strange things happen when we feel beholden to a structure. If lesson planning with Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy hasn’t been working for you or your class, rethink the background on how it should be applied. Reconsider the way you’re assessing student learning. Break down the hierarchy and rebuild.
Illustration credits: CC-BY 2.0 Vanderbilt University; CC-BY-SA 3.0 K. Aqinsqatsi.
Related stories Bloom’s verbs and how to apply them to questions
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References
Wright, S. (2012, May 15). Flipping Bloom’s Taxonomy [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://plpnetwork.com/2012/05/15/flipping-blooms-taxonomy/
Parker, Q. (2018, October 3). The Possibilities of an Agile Classroom: Sir Ken Robinson [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://tophat.com/blog/sir-ken-robinson-qa/
Case, R. Unfortunate Consequences of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Retrieved from https://tc2.ca/uploads/PDFs/Critical%20Discussions/unfortunate_consequences_blooms_taxonomy.pdf
Wilson, L. O. (2017, January 20). Understanding the New Version of Bloom’s Taxonomy. [Blog post] https://thesecondprinciple.com/teaching-essentials/beyond-bloom-cognitive-taxonomy-revised/
