A Weighted Concept Map Approach to Generate Learning Guidance in Science Courses

Abstract

During the last two decades it has been observed that there has been substantial advancement in the domain of E-Learning systems. This may be attributed to development in the field on networking and communication. However most of these systems lack face to face interaction between the learner and the tutor and hence are unable to pinpoint the learner deficiencies. In this context, several researchers have used Concept Maps for identifying student learning barriers. However a major drawback of Concept Map approach is that all concepts are given equal degree of importance from the learner point of view. In this work a Weighted Concept Map based approach is proposed to provide remedial learning guidance to the learners. The system works by generating automated Concept Map and assigning weights to the concepts based on their importance for computation of best remedial learning path. The approach has been tested with a set of middle school students for identifying their learning deficiencies in science courses and the results found to be satisfactory.