Handling Uncertainty and Multiple Perspectives for Learner Modeling by Cognitive Mapping

This research deals with two issues for learner modeling: uncertainty and multiple perspectives. Hence, it proposes a process called cognitive mapping to acquire and describe objects of a domain of study, and set fuzzy-causal relationships among them. Objects are characterized as linguistic variables that are instantiated by linguistic terms; whereas relations are outlined by means of fuzzyrule bases. So objects and relations are statements of qualitative knowledge that are measured in terms of nature and degrees of bias to reveal uncertainty. The representation of multiple perspectives of the learner is sketched through the topology of a cognitive map and the qualitative measures attached to objects and relationships. This approach was tested in an E-learning trial, its outcomes show the effectiveness of the learner model to enhance the apprenticeship of volunteers due to the successfully handle of uncertainty and multiple perspectives.