A Proposal of Method for Grasping Conceptual Structure Using Hierarchical Networks

In this paper, a method is proposed for grasping conceptual structure of individual students and a class by using hierarchical networks. Each student locates relationships between instructional topics on the definite sheet. A computer program constructs the hierarchical network for each student from the relationships by using the interpretive structural modeling method. The difference between the reference hierarchical network of the professor and that of each student is compared. This comparison identifies differences and helps the teacher recognize the conceptual structure and instructional topics not understood by each student. The hierarchical networks, which reflect the conceptual structure for a class, is produced by overlaping the relationships obtained from each student. The hieratehical network for a class can be used to find instructional topics which need additional instruction, and to evaluate the order of instructional topics and the instruction techniques. Actual instructional topics of physics in a technical college are used to illustrate the procedure