Cognitive Rigor

Cognitive rigor is a model, developed in 2005 by Karin Hess of the National Center for Assessment, that superimposes two widely used American education frameworks, Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge, into a single four-by-six matrix known as the Cognitive Rigor Matrix or Hess Matrix. Bloom's Taxonomy categorizes the type of cognitive process a task demands while Webb's Depth of Knowledge measures the depth and scope of understanding a task requires, and the combined matrix is meant to check that curriculum materials, lesson plans and assessment items are challenging students to the level of thinking intended rather than only the level either framework would show alone. The model has since been adopted by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to measure test-item rigor and is used in professional development materials by school systems including the Arizona Department of Education, the New York City Department of Education and Chicago Public Schools.