Análise de questões de biologia do Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (ENEM) pela Taxonomia de Bloom Revisada

Abstract

The National High School Exam (ENEM), created in 1998, was designed to guide Brazil’s high school curricular guidelines, support students in self-assessing their learning, and replace the traditional vestibulares, which were merely classificatory university admission tests. Over time, ENEM has become the primary selection mechanism for higher education and has gained broad societal acceptance. To differentiate itself from traditional exams by assessing both the selection criteria and reasoning ability, a proficiency scale was introduced for item development. In 2009, the Anísio Teixeira National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP) implemented Changes that reduced the interdisciplinary nature of the items, increased the number of competencies and skills, and adopted the item response theory. While numerous studies have examined ENEM’s content approach, few have assessed the effectiveness of the exam in evaluating the reasoning skills that it aims to measure. This study addresses this gap by analyzing the cognitive processes and types of knowledge explored in ENEM’s original and revised biology items using Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy (RBT) as a framework. The findings revealed a predominant focus on lower-order reasoning skills, particularly recall and understanding, a pattern consistent with international assessments of science education curricula. However, while countries such as Finland and the Czech Republic have eliminated memorization-based approaches, ENEM continues to emphasize concepts and, to a lesser extent, factual knowledge in biology. This contrasts with Finland and Taiwan, where procedural knowledge is prioritized. These insights can support teachers in lesson planning and assessment design as well as inform item developers in refining the cognitive demands of Brazil’s national exam.