STRUCTURAL REPRESENTATIONS IN KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION

Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and Pathfinder techniques for assessing changes in the structural representation (RP) of a knowledge (KN) domain as a function of learning were compared and evaluated. Relatedness ratings, collected from university students before and after they studied a textbook, were analyzed with both MDS and Pathfinder procedures. Relatedness ratings were collected from the students' instructors, and the similarity between the instructors' structural RPs and those of their students provided evidence of learning. A conceptual test captured the ability of the techniques to predict concept-to-concept learning. Students' networks and dimensional RPs varied depending on whether they had (a) already studied the textbook and (b) learned the material. Comparisons between student and expert similarity measures indicated that multidimensional scaling and graph theoretic approaches are valid techniques. MDS represented global properties of KN, whereas graph networks captured local conceptual relations.