The SOLO taxonomy

The SOLO taxonomy is based in the study of outcomes in a variety of academic content areas (Biggs and Collis 1982). As students learn, the outcomes of their learning display similar stages of increasing structural complexity. There are two main changes: quantitative, as the amount of detail in the student's responses increases; and qualitative, as that detail becomes integrated into a structural pattern. The quantitative stages of learning occur first, then learning changes qualitatively.

SOLO, which stands for Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome, provides a systematic way of describing how a learner's performance grows in complexity when mastering many academic tasks. It can thus be used to define curriculum objectives, which describe where a student should be operating, and for evaluating learning outcomes so that we can know at what levels individual students actually are operating.

References

John Biggs, 1999, Teaching for Quality Learning at University, SRHE and Open University Press, Buckingham, pp. 37.

Biggs, J.B. and Collis, K.F. (1982) Evaluating the Quality of Learning: the SOLO Taxonomy, New York: Academic Press.