Developmental Process of Knowledge in Textbooks: Analysis of the Growth Process of a Terminological Network in Text

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26880005
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Library and information science/Humanistic social informatics
• Research Institution: Aichi Shukutoku University (2015); The University of Tokyo (2014)
• Principal Investigator: Asaishi Takuma 愛知淑徳大学, 人間情報学部, 助教 (10735632)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-08-29 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 教科書 / 計量情報学 / 計量言語学 / ネットワーク分析 / 教育学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The growth process of a terminological network has been analyzed to reveal the developmental process of knowledge in textbooks. We construct terminological networks, with vertices representing terms and edges representing co-occurrence of terms in a paragraph. Our primary results are as follows. (1) New term appears constantly as a whole, while many more new terms appear in some sections. (2) Most terms are connected to other terms consistently. (3) The average number of terms that are directly connected to a term is increasing. Terms are indirectly connected through two or three terms on average. (4) The degree of centralization (i.e., few terms are connected to many terms directly or facilitate indirect connection between terms) is deteriorating. These results differ from the results obtained when terms appear randomly in the textbooks. Characteristics according to subject and school level are also observed.

Free Research Field

図書館情報学