Applying the Formal Concept Analysis to Introduce Guidance in an Inquiry-Based Learning Environment

The European research project weSPOT aims at supporting science learning in secondary and higher education. The underlying pedagogical approach, inquiry-based learning, is often criticized for the lack in teaching learning content and for overburden novice learners. To fill this gap, we developed the Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) tool which is used by teachers to define a knowledge domain, i.e. The objects, attributes and their relations to each other. Learning resources can be assigned to subsets of objects and attributes. By navigating through the concept lattice students get an overview of the topic. They learn by consuming learning resources, either in a self-regulated way, by interacting with the nodes of the lattice, or when following a recommender system which suggests learning resources based on the domain model and defined pedagogical rules. The paper describes the FCA tool and how it is used by teachers and students, and the recommendation strategy that supports students when browsing the knowledge domain.