A CAI System to Identify Weak Parts of a Learner: On the Numbers of Category Layers and Questions in a Set of Questions

Abstract

A teaching method which a teacher gives a lecture to a number of students in a lump, that is, “reception learning” is an effective way to give many students much knowledge in short period of time. However, even if there are great differences among many students in the level of understanding, the teaching method can not fill the knowledge gap [1]. For this reason, the authors are proposing an individual learning system using a CAI (Computer Aided Instruction) system in order for the students to study more effectively to overcome their weak parts of study. However, since the existing CAI systems have no concept of “categories” to divide a learning field into several parts of study in the Student Model, the students may have to study the parts where they already have enough knowledge. Therefore, It is able to say that the students could not lean efficiently by using the past CAI systems. It led us to propose a CAI system [18] that each student only has to learn only his/her weak parts by automatically identifying the weak parts. In our CAI system, if a learning field is decided, it is able to naturally determine the number of category layers of questions in the learning field; however, in the past it was not able to clarify the appropriate number of questions which compose a set of questions on each category layer. This paper resolves this issue by conducting a series of