Integration of OT and IRS to Explore Structure of Statistics Concepts

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to integrate two methodological approaches to explore concept structures. One approach is student-problem chart (S-P chart) and ordering theory (OT) and the other is fuzzy clustering and item relational structure (IRS). S-P chart is adopted to classify all students into proper learning styles. OT is to determine hierarchies of concept structures. Fuzzy clustering is soft computation to cluster features of students and combine IRS so as to determine the precondition and ordering relationship among items. The empirical data is statistics concepts test of university students. The results show that integration of these two approaches is feasible for cognition diagnosis and would be helpful for remedial instruction. Finally, some suggestions and recommendations for future research and educational research are provided.