Understanding, reasoning and learning are cognitive activities that rely heavily on the ability of individuals to relate information to their previous knowledge. Many studies are devoted to the psychological mechanisms underlying these activities, and to a lesser extent to the structure of knowledge itself. It is on this last issue that my research focuses especially on the application that can be made for the design of computer learning environments. The study of the relationship between the knowledge structures and the process of understanding, reasoning and production is a key issue for understanding the impact of initial knowledge in these activities, diagnose what separates the novice and the expert therefore better understand the origin of mistakes, learning difficulties and ways to remedy them.

 Currently I’m working on Ontostats project (http://gapai.univ-paris8.fr/ontostats/). Our objective is to develop an ontology of statistical concepts for sharing of educationnal resources. The ontology also provides a model of the knowledge structure of the expert which we could compare with the novice’s one.

Location

France

Disciplines

• Psychology

Affiliation

Université Paris 8