Concept Networks in Learning and the Epistemic Support of their Key Concepts

Peer reviewe

Concept networks of students’ knowledge of relationships between physics concepts : finding key concepts and their epistemic support

Abstract Concept maps, which are network-like visualisations of the inter-linkages between concepts, are used in teaching and learning as representations of students’ understanding of conceptual knowledge and its relational structure. In science education, research on the uses of concept maps has focused much attention on finding methods to identify key concepts that are of the most importance either in supporting or being supported by other concepts in the network. Here we propose a method based on network analysis to examine students’ representations of the relational structure of physics concepts in the form of concept maps. We suggest how the key concepts and their epistemic support can be identified through focusing on the pathways along which the information is passed from one node to another. Towards this end, concept maps are analysed as directed and weighted networks, where nodes are concepts and links represent different types of connections between concepts, and where each link is assumed to provide epistemic support to the node it is connected to. The notion of key concept can then be operationalised through the directed flow of information from one node to another in terms of communicability between the nodes, separately for out-going and in-coming weighted links. Here we analyse a collated concept network based on a sample of 12 original concept maps constructed by university students. We show that communicability is a simple and reliable way to identify the key concepts and examine their epistemic justification within the collated network. The communicabilities of the key nodes in the collated network are compared with communicabilities averaged over the set of 12 individual concept maps. The comparison shows the collated network contains an extensive set of key concepts with good epistemic support. Every individual networks contain a sub-set of these key concepts but with a limited overlap of the sub-sets with other individual networks. The epistemically well substantiated knowledge is thus sparsely distributed over the 12 individual networks

Conceptualising transition from education to work as vocational practice: lessons from the UK's creative and cultural sector

The paper argues that: (i) the demise of ‘occupational’ and ‘internal’ and the spread of ‘external’ labour markets in growth areas of UK economy such as the creative and cultural (C&C) sector, coupled with the massification of higher education which has created a new type of post-degree ‘vocational need’, means that the transition from education to work should be re-thought as the development of vocational practice rather than the acquisition of qualifications; and, (ii) in order to re-think transition as the development of vocational practice it is necessary to eviscerate the legacy of the ‘traditional’ conception of practice in UK educational policy. The paper reviews a number of alternative social scientific conceptions of practice, formulates more multi-faceted conceptions of vocational practice, and discusses their implications for UK and EU educational policy

On Cognitive Preferences and the Plausibility of Rule-based Models

It is conventional wisdom in machine learning and data mining that logical models such as rule sets are more interpretable than other models, and that among such rule-based models, simpler models are more interpretable than more complex ones. In this position paper, we question this latter assumption by focusing on one particular aspect of interpretability, namely the plausibility of models. Roughly speaking, we equate the plausibility of a model with the likeliness that a user accepts it as an explanation for a prediction. In particular, we argue that, all other things being equal, longer explanations may be more convincing than shorter ones, and that the predominant bias for shorter models, which is typically necessary for learning powerful discriminative models, may not be suitable when it comes to user acceptance of the learned models. To that end, we first recapitulate evidence for and against this postulate, and then report the results of an evaluation in a crowd-sourcing study based on about 3.000 judgments. The results do not reveal a strong preference for simple rules, whereas we can observe a weak preference for longer rules in some domains. We then relate these results to well-known cognitive biases such as the conjunction fallacy, the representative heuristic, or the recogition heuristic, and investigate their relation to rule length and plausibility.Comment: V4: Another rewrite of section on interpretability to clarify focus on plausibility and relation to interpretability, comprehensibility, and justifiabilit

Epistemic policy networks in the European Union’s CBRN risk mitigation policy

This paper offers insights into an innovative and currently flagship approach of the European Union (EU) to the mitigation of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) risks. Building on its long-time experience in the CBRN field, the EU has incorporated methods familiar to the students of international security governance: it is establishing regional networks of experts and expertise. CBRN Centers of Excellence, as they are officially called, aim to contribute to the security and safety culture in different parts of Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia, and South East Europe, in the broadly construed CBRN area. These regional networks represent a modern form of security cooperation, which can be conceptualized as an epistemic policy networks approach. It offers flexibility to the participating states, which have different incentives to get involved. At the same, however, the paper identifies potential limitations and challenges of epistemic policy networks in this form

Student and expert perceptions of the role of mathematics within physics

Students’ perceptions of the role of mathematics within physics were examined. I propose that the identification of physics as a science based ultimately on experiment is a threshold concept: transformation from a naïve view that physics is based upon mathematics to an expert view that physics is based on experiment is difficult for students. Seven students taking first-year university physics were interviewed in two focus groups; nine practising physicists from academia and industry (considered as experts) were interviewed as six individuals plus one focus group of three participants. Of particular interest was the ‘expert’ view emphasizing the conceptual nature of physics. This was a threshold in understanding that had not been crossed by students. Rather, students viewed mathematics and physics as being more strongly connected than did practising physicists; specifically that “maths explains physics”. Experts consider this view as holding back a student’s understanding of the subject and preventing them from becoming effective physicists. It is troublesome to students because they are less able to identify the relevant concepts before trying to tackle a problem with mathematics, making their approach less likely to be effective, however, both groups (physicists and students) identified physics as belonging to ‘the real world’ and that mathematics shows how physical entities can be combined or related, indicating student responses are not completely naïve. Opinions on how best to teach mathematical concepts in physics varied considerably across participants

Guanxi and business environment in china: an innovative network as a process of knowledge-based economy

Guanxi is a specific part of Chinese business environment. Since the openness of China, it seems that a contradiction appears between the constraints of corporate governance and the cultural and traditional behaviour in business. Most of west analyses consider that Guanxi is only a form of corruption and therefore it should be fight it out. The originality of our work is to frame these questions in the context of recent concepts such as communities of practice and epistemic communities. Based on these concepts, we consider that the firm can be analysed from a dual perspective: cognitive and organisational. The first one belongs to the guanxi logic and the second one to the corporate governance. According to these framework, we point out the fact that guanxi provides an innovative network in order to diffuse and enhance knowledge.Guanxi, corporate governance, communities, knowledge, network

Developing vocational practice in the jewellery sector through the incubation of a new “project-object”

This paper analyses a work placement scheme established to create the conditions to: (i) incubate new designs in the jewellery sector in Birmingham; (ii) support a jewellery company compete more effectively in the global market; (iii) assist a newly qualified graduate jeweller to enter the jewellery sector. It introduces a new theoretical framework based on concepts from: Cultural-Historical Activity Theory-'project-object'; Workplace Learning-'vocational practice'; Philosophy of Mind-'space of reasons'; to analyse individual and organisational contributions to workplace learning in this scheme. It identifies the strategies and tactics used by: (i) the organisations involved with the scheme to facilitate the incubation of the new designs, and (ii) an aspiring jewellery designer to create a new product range. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of this conceptual framework for debates in workplace learning about: (i) the 'front-loaded' versus 'practice-based' conceptions of vocational education and (ii) the role of epistemic objects and practices in the development of vocational practice. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Landscape Design Dialogue. Bridging the gap between knowledge and action

Spatial planners and landscape architects do not excel in theory development. The authors, being a practicing landscape architect-planner and a planning scholar, explore new roads to a middle range theory of landscape design and planning. Building on theories-in-use in regional planning practice they develop an empirically grounded methodology for planning and design. The process of theory building is part of a process of methodical reflection on best and worst practices. It focuses on an analysis of planning and design efforts in the period 1970 – 2005 which have gradually transformed the landscape of the Rhine-Meuse Flood Plain in the Netherland