Computer-Based Diagnostics and Systematic Analysis of Knowledge

What is knowledge? How can it be successfully assessed? How can we best use the results? As questions such as these continue to be discussed and the learning sciences continue to deal with expanding amounts of data, the challenge of applying theory to diagnostic methods takes on more complexity.

Computer-Based Diagnostics and Systematic Analysis of Knowledge meets this challenge head-on as an international panel of experts reviews current and emerging assessment methodologies in the psychological and educational arenas. Emphasizing utility, effectiveness, and ease of interpretation, contributors critically discuss practical innovations and intriguing possibilities (including mental representations, automated knowledge visualization, modeling, and computer-based feedback) across fields ranging from mathematics education to medicine. These contents themselves model the steps of systematic inquiry, from theoretical construct to real-world application:

• Historical and theoretical foundations for the investigation of knowledge
• Current opportunities for understanding knowledge empirically
• Strategies for the aggregation and classification of knowledge
• Tools and methods for comparison and empirical testing
• Data interfaces between knowledge assessment tools
• Guidance in applying research results to particular fields

Researchers and professionals in education psychology, instructional technology, computer science, and linguistics will find Computer-Based Diagnostics and Systematic Analysis of Knowledge a stimulating guide to a complex present and a rapidly evolving future.

Elicitation of Knowledge.- Essentials of Computer-Based Diagnostics of Learning and Cognition.- A Functional View Toward Mental Representations.- Mental Representations and Their Analysis: An Epistemological Perspective.- Multi-decision Approaches for Eliciting Knowledge Structure.- The Problem of Knowledge Elicitation from the Expert’s Point of View.- Aggregation and Classification of Knowledge.- Automated Knowledge Visualization and Assessment.- Deriving Individual and Group Knowledge Structure from Network Diagrams and from Essays.- A Self-Organising Systems Approach to History-Enriched Digital Objects.- Performance Categories: Task-Diagnostic Techniques and Interfaces.- Comaprison and Empirical Testing Strategies.- Graphs and Networks.- Abductive Reasoning and Similarity: Some Computational Tools.- Scope of Graphical Indices in Educational Diagnostics.- Complete Structure Comparison.- Application of Obtained Results.- Computer-Based Feedback for Computer-Based Collaborative Problem Solving.- Modeling, Assessing, and Supporting Key Competencies Within Game Environments.- A Methodology for Assessing Elicitation of Knowledge in Complex Domains: Identifying Conceptual Representations of Ill-Structured Problems in Medical Diagnosis.- Selection of Team Interventions Based on Mental Model Sharedness Levels Measured by the Team Assessment and Diagnostic Instrument (TADI).