Transfer Effects of Semantic Networks on Expert Systems: Mindtools at Work

Abstract

Semantic networks and expert systems can support learning and critical thinking as Mindtools. Mindtools are computer-based tools that function as intellectual partners with the learner in order to engage and facilitate critical thinking and higher-order learning. Semantic networks and expert systems in particular are cognitive reflection tools that help learners to build a representation of what they know by designing their own knowledge bases. Semantic networks have been used as a knowledge elicitation tool for expert system construction; however, the effects of using these tools together has never been formally studied. This study examined the effects of building semantic networks on the coherence and utility of expert systems subsequently constructed. Subjects who constructed semantic networks first produced expert systems with significantly more rules and rule types than a control group. The task's intentional ambiguity and the differences in thinking necessary for semantic network and expert system construction may have affected the non-significance of other expert system complexity variables.