Responses and Knowledge Structures from Taagepera et al. (1997)

Taagepera et al. (1997) applied knowledge space theory to specific science problems. The density test was administered to 2060 students, the conservation of matter test to 1620 students. A subtest of five items each is included here. The response frequencies were reconstructed from histograms in the paper.

data(Taagepera)

Format

Two lists, each consisting of two components:

density97

a list with components K and N.R for the density test.

matter97

a list with components K and N.R for the conservation of matter test.

K

a state-by-problem indicator matrix representing the hypothetical knowledge structure. An element is one if the problem is contained in the state, and else zero.

N.R

a named numeric vector. The names denote response patterns, the values denote their frequencies.

Source

Taagepera, M., Potter, F., Miller, G.E., & Lakshminarayan, K. (1997). Mapping students' thinking patterns by the use of knowledge space theory. International Journal of Science Education, 19(3), 283–302. doi:10.1080/0950069970190303

Examples

data(Taagepera)
density97$K     # density test knowledge structure
#>       a b c d e
#> 00000 0 0 0 0 0
#> 10000 1 0 0 0 0
#> 01000 0 1 0 0 0
#> 00001 0 0 0 0 1
#> 10001 1 0 0 0 1
#> 01001 0 1 0 0 1
#> 01010 0 1 0 1 0
#> 10101 1 0 1 0 1
#> 11001 1 1 0 0 1
#> 01011 0 1 0 1 1
#> 10111 1 0 1 1 1
#> 11011 1 1 0 1 1
#> 01111 0 1 1 1 1
#> 11111 1 1 1 1 1
density97$N.R   # density test response patterns
#> 00000 10000 01000 00100 00010 00001 11000 10100 10010 10001 01100 01010 01001 
#>    37    42    28     9    14    78     9    14    18   166     5    14    55 
#> 00110 00101 00011 11100 11010 11001 10110 10101 10011 01110 01101 01011 00111 
#>     9    46    44     9    14    92    32   115   111    18    23    37    88 
#> 11110 11101 11011 10111 01111 11111 
#>    23    42   111   351    78   328 
matter97$K      # conservation of matter knowledge structure
#>       a b c d e
#> 00000 0 0 0 0 0
#> 10000 1 0 0 0 0
#> 00100 0 0 1 0 0
#> 00010 0 0 0 1 0
#> 00001 0 0 0 0 1
#> 10100 1 0 1 0 0
#> 10010 1 0 0 1 0
#> 01100 0 1 1 0 0
#> 00011 0 0 0 1 1
#> 10110 1 0 1 1 0
#> 01101 0 1 1 0 1
#> 10011 1 0 0 1 1
#> 11101 1 1 1 0 1
#> 10111 1 0 1 1 1
#> 11111 1 1 1 1 1
matter97$N.R    # conservation of matter response patterns
#> 00000 10000 01000 00100 00010 00001 11000 10100 10010 10001 01100 01010 01001 
#>    47    83    19    51    28    24    19   115    88    60    28     1    10 
#> 00110 00101 00011 11100 11010 11001 10110 10101 10011 01110 01101 01011 00111 
#>    24    28    26    47    15    19   120    97    88    10    28     5    19 
#> 11110 11101 11011 10111 01111 11111 
#>    51    60    24   261    15   110