A new approach for constructing the concept map

For achieving the adaptive learning, a predefined concept map of a course is often used to provide adaptive learning guidance for learners. However, it is difficult and time consuming to create the concept map of a course. Thus, how to automatically create a concept map of a course becomes an interesting issue. In this paper, we propose a two-phase concept map construction (TPCMC) approach to automatically construct the concept map by learners' historical testing records. Phase 1 is used to preprocess the testing records. We apply fuzzy set theory to transform the numeric testing records of learners into symbolic, apply education theory (item analysis for norm-referencing) to further refine it, and apply data mining approach to find its grade fuzzy association rules. Then, in Phase 2, based upon our observation in real learning situation, we use multiple rule types to further analyze the mined rules and then propose a heuristic algorithm to automatically construct the concept map. Finally, the redundancy and circularity of the concept map constructed are also evaluated.