TOWARD AN ONLINE KNOWLEDGE ASSESSMENT METHODOLOGY - BUILDING ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KNOWING AND DOING

The researchers describe steps taken toward the development of an on-l ine knowledge assessment methodology in the airborne electronics troub leshooting domain On-line assessment in this complex, ill-defined doma in requires an empirical investigation of expert or ideal knowledge an d a means to infer knowledge patterns from action patterns. In Study 1 , actions taken while troubleshooting were examined to develop a means for identifying meaningful action patterns. Pathfinder analyses of ac tion sequences meaningfully distinguished high and low performers and identified intervention targets. In Study 2, methods for measuring stu dents' knowledge were examined in terms of their respective abilities to predict troubleshooting performance. Three of the evaluated measure s resulted in knowledge representations that were predictive of perfor mance. Our findings have implications for capturing conceptual models and assessing knowledge in complex domains.