Modelling Conceptual Change: An Interdisciplinary Approach

A computational approach to the simulation of cognitive models of conceptual change in children learning elementary physics is presented. The student's mental model is inferred from a sequence of interviews collected along a period of eleven teaching sessions. Goal of the simulation is to support the cognitive scientist's investigation of learning in humans. The hypothesized cognitive models are based on a theory of conceptual change, derived from psychology results and educational experiences, which accounts for the evolution of the student's knowledge over a learning period. A Machine Learning (ML) system, able to handle domain knowledge (including a causal model of the domain), has been chosen as tool for the simulation of the cognitive models evolution. The system performs knowledge revision and provides causal explanation for its conclusions.

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