Pre-structural - The task is not attacked appropriately; the student hasn’t really understood the point and uses too simple a way of going about it.
Uni-structural - The student's response only focuses on one relevant aspect.
Multi-structural - The student's response focuses on several relevant aspects but they are treated independently and additively. Assessment of this level is primarily quantitative.
Relational - The different aspects have become integrated into a coherent whole. This level is what is normally meant by an adequate understanding of some topic.
Extended abstract - The previous integrated whole may be conceptualised at a higher level of abstraction and generalised to a new topic or area. Retrieved on 18th June, 2011 from http://en.wikipedia.org
John Briggs has shown the levels of understanding pictorially
The model consists of 5 levels of understanding:
John Briggs has shown the levels of understanding pictorially