Cognitive Maps-Based Student Model

The main contribution of this PhD thesis is: A proposal for Student Modeling based upon Cognitive Maps. Its purpose is to anticipate the effects that a teaching-learning experience will produce on a student before its delivery. Thus, this dissertation focuses on the Student Modeling from the causal-effect perspective. Also, our approach aims to predict outcomes stemmed from teaching-learning sessions delivered by Web-based Education Systems. So the thesis claims for using Cognitive Maps to state the concepts that identify factors of several domains, as cognitive skills and knowledge about the teaching domain. In addition, the paradigm proposed sets the causal relationships between the factors of several domains. Concepts are valued in a universe of discourse by fuzzy terms. These qualitative values depict the level state or the variation of the state of the concepts after a while. Causal relations are outlined by fuzz-rules bases. Each rule identifies a cause-effect influence that a source concept owns upon a target one. Thus, given a fuzzy term for the antecedent concept, a corresponding linguistic value is assigned to the consequent concept. With this baseline, the approach traces fuzzy-causal inferences for predicting the behavior and outcomes of the student, before he/she faces a given teaching-learning experience. Wherefore in Web-based Educations Systems, whose lessons have several sequence strategies and options of content, our Student Model offers a proactive and adaptive support for a student-centered education.