Select and use appropriate theories or procedures to solve new or unfamiliar situations.
Students at the DIC worked on an assignment about when Iraq threatened to invade Kuwait again in October 1994.
They decided to use Richard Heuer’s analytical methodology (Analysis of Competing Hypotheses or ACH) for evaluating multiple hypotheses.
2. Analyze
Dissect the problem into parts to determine how they relate to one another or to an overall structure or purpose.
Combine the parts into a new integrated whole.
They identified all potential hypotheses such as Iraq was training troops to conduct a demonstration.
They listed evidence and arguments for and against each hypothesis.
They designed a matrix containing each alternative hypothesis in an attempt to disprove as many as possible.
3. Evaluate
Make judgment about the value based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
They rated the evidence as consistent, inconsistent, or not related.
They reviewed the findings and evaluated them to identify gaps and need for additional evidence.
4. Create (highest level)
Construct a report that provides your findings, recommendations, and value judgments.
Prepare an oral presentation
They questioned their analysis and tried to draw conclusions about the likelihood of each hypothesis.
They identified consistency or inconsistency of assumptions and generated a report that includes findings and summary of all alternatives and reasons for rejections.
They provided recommendations and milestones as indicators for future analysis.
Table 1 uses examples of a structured analytical technique called Analysis of Competing Hypothesis (ACH) to describe higher order cognitive levels from an intelligence analyst’s perspective. ACH is a hypothesis testing methodology that uses a matrix for rudimentary visualization (Van Gedler, 2006). Intelligence analysts also resort to statistical hypothesis testing. Oftentimes though, the data are incomplete and have limited usefulness.
In addition to the cognitive processing dimension, the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy identifies the knowledge dimension that includes four levels of knowledge: factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive (Pickard, 2007, p.48). Intelligence analysts also need different types of knowledge to accomplish the tasks of providing mission-critical analysis to decision-makers. Table 2 describes the levels of knowledge and maps them to examples from intelligence analysis.
Table 2: Knowledge Dimension of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and Intelligence Analysis
