Understanding tree: a tool for estimating one's understanding of conceptual knowledge

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel tool called 'Understanding Tree' that estimates an individual's understanding of conceptual knowledge by monitoring their learning activities, offering a more efficient alternative to traditional assessment methods.

Contribution

The paper proposes a new method for estimating understanding of knowledge through learning activity tracking, addressing limitations of tests and interviews.

Findings

Effective in tracking understanding levels

Overcomes limitations of traditional assessments

Complementary to existing evaluation methods

Abstract

People learn whenever and wherever possible, and whatever they like or encounter--Mathematics, Drama, Art, Languages, Physics, Philosophy, and so on. With the bursting of knowledge, evaluation of one's understanding of conceptual knowledge becomes increasingly difficult. There are a lot of demands for evaluating one's understanding of a piece of knowledge, e.g., facilitating personalized recommendations; discovering one's expertises and deficiencies in a field; recommending topics for a conversation between people with different educational or cultural backgrounds in their first encounter; recommending a learning material to practice a meaningful learning etc. Assessment of understanding of knowledge is conventionally practiced through tests or interviews, but they have some limitations such as low-efficiency and in-comprehensive. We propose a method to estimate one's understanding of conceptual knowledge, by keeping track of his/her learning activities. It overcomes some limitations of traditional methods, hence complements traditional methods.