Knowledge Representation and Reasoning Research Papers (original) (raw)

A suite of standards known as the Semantic Web is transforming the Internet to a semantic graph rather than a graph of hypertext links. This paper will describe how various ideas and initiatives in artificial intelligence knowledge representation influenced its design. We begin with the seminal work by Alan Turing and Alonzo Church that led to the definition of Turing Machines, enabled digital computing, and provided the mathematical theory of computation which has been one of the determining factors for Artificial Intelligence knowledge representation. We then provide a brief history of artificial intelligence knowledge representation starting with groundbreaking researchers such as Newell and Simon, then to the first "AI boom" driven primarily by rule-based expert systems followed by major initiatives such as Cyc and the DARPA Knowledge Sharing Initiative. We will discuss how innovations from these initiatives affected standards that in turn led to the suite of standards known as the Semantic Web. We conclude with a brief overview of the most important issues currently facing those who wish to see widespread adoption of Semantic Web technology in industry.

- by and +1
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- Ontology (Computer Science), Semantic Web technology - Ontologies, Semantic Web, Linked Open Data

Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools and workflows have the potential to significantly improve the efficiency of design, construction and operation activities. Numerous BIM deliverables and their respective requirements have been widely discussed by industry stakeholders. This is evidenced by the intensity of online communications surrounding BIM topics and the accelerating availability of noteworthy BIM publications (NBP)s. NBPs are publically-available industry documents incorporating guidelines, protocols and requirements focusing on BIM deliverables and workflows. These publications are the product of various governmental bodies, industry associations, communities of practice and research institutions, intended to facilitate BIM adoption, and realize BIM’s value-adding potential.
A specialized taxonomy is employed to analyze 57 noteworthy BIM publications from across eight countries selected for their active BIM scene. The BIM knowledge content (BKC) taxonomy includes three knowledge content clusters (guides, protocols and mandates) subdivided into 18 knowledge content labels (e.g. report, manual, and contract). Ten of these content labels are used to analyze and compare publications from Australia, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Preliminary content analysis is then performed which provides insight into the availability and distribution of BIM knowledge within noteworthy BIM publications. The analysis identifies knowledge gaps within publications and highlights opportunities for future research and complementary publication efforts.
This chapter contributes to organizing BIM knowledge as contained within numerous noteworthy BIM publications and – by that - facilitates targeted access to their content. It provides a knowledge repository for construction industry stakeholder’s to utilize during BIM implementation and a research base for investigators seeking to identify and address knowledge gaps across the BIM domain.

- by Bilal Succar and +1
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- Knowledge Management, Knowledge Models, Construction Technology, Construction Management

We argue for a compositional semantics grounded in a strongly typed ontology that reflects our commonsense view of the world and the way we talk about it. Assuming such a structure we show that the semantics of various natural language... more

- by Walid Saba
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- Artificial Intelligence, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy Of Language

Within the scope of ANSWER, an EC-supported research project, a new artistic notation system, called DirectorNotation, is being developed for describing media content, much like notes are used to document a music composition. Our current research focuses on developing “notation-enabled ” offline authoring tools, but interactive applications are an anticipated extension. Here, we summarise the key aspects of DirectorNotation and the ANSWER project, from the point of view of a multimedia-technology audience interested in content-based manipulation of media. Categories and Subject Descriptors

- by Yannis Christodoulou
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- Computer Science, New Media, Design, Human Factors

Critical thinking by definition can be explained as the determination of whether we should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which we should accept or reject it. Critical thinking helps us to formulate a judgment as to whether a position, theory, or idea is incomplete or unclear, insufficiently supported by the contentions made in its behalf, or whether the argument is unconvincing, or simply wrong. One of the principle tenants of critical thinking is that the ideas, arguments, and conclusions being offered are critiqued and not the person making them. As you can tell from the dogma and discourse going on in the media these days, this isn’t a widely embraced approach amongst politicians, pundits, reporters, and the general public. It is perfectly acceptable to come to a conclusion about the person making the argument, but that comes much later and is based upon the position they took on the issue and the rationale they used to argue their point. It is also a measure of how often they are perceived as inaccurate, uninformed, or simply incorrect about an issue that they postulate, and what strategies they use routinely to manipulate the people they are endeavoring to persuade to their point of view.

- by Hal Campbell
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- Logic, Critical Thinking, Practical Reasons and Rationality, Fallacies
- by Kerry Handscomb
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- Cognitive Science, Perception, Mathematics Education, Visual perception

Service contracts bind parties legally, regulating their behavior in the scope of a (business) service relationship. Given that there are legal consequences attached to service contracts, understanding the elements of a contract is key to managing services in an enterprise. After all, provisions in a service contract and in legislation establish obligations and rights for service providers and customers that must be respected in service delivery. The importance of service contracts to service provisioning in an enterprise has motivated us to investigate their representation in enterprise models. We have observed that approaches fall into two extremes of a spectrum. Some approaches, such as ArchiMate, offer an opaque "contract" construct, not revealing the rights and obligations in the scope of the governed service relationship. Other approaches, under the umbrella term "contract languages", are devoted exactly to the formal representation of the contents of contracts. Despite the applications of contract languages, they operate at a level of detail that does not match that of enterprise architecture models. In this paper, we explore and bridge the gap between these two extremes. We address the representation of service contract elements with a systematic approach: we first propose a well-founded service contract ontology, and then extend the ArchiMate language to reflect the elements of the service contract ontology. The applicability of the proposed extension is assessed in the representation of a real-world cloud service contract.

- by Giancarlo Guizzardi and +1
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- Information Systems, Information Systems (Business Informatics), Contracts, Ontology

The information age is characterized by the huge amount of data available to people. The exact amount of
data in the globe was estimated at about 4.4 zettabytes as at 2013 and this is assumed to rise to about 44
zettabytes by 2020. Arguably, a zettabyte is equivalent to 44 trillion gigabytes. The Internet is regarded
as the largest source of data, an enormous source of information with a great stock of various web pages &
hyperlinks. The information on the internet can be queried with the aim of enabling users to find
whatever they want. In the same vein, the number and diversity of internet users continue to increase.
Millions of users all over the world search the Web on a daily basis with the aim of finding the right
answer or solution to problems. The Web has revolutionized access to digitally available data; as such,
web information search and retrieval have become key aspects of human interactions. Information
retrieval is a complex process, the study of which has attracted a lot of research efforts. This paper carried
out a systematic review of information retrieval, search, andranking algorithms. The objective is to
provide a theoreicalk framework and identify research gaps that can serve as a basis for the development
of an enhanced recursive model for individualized search

- by David Macarthur
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- Truth, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

This paper presents an ontology architecture concept for the European Space Agency‘s (ESA) Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Program. It incorporates the author‘s domain ontology, The Space Situational Awareness Ontology and related ontology work. I summarize computational ontology, discuss the segments of ESA SSA, and introduce an option for a modular ontology framework reflecting the divisions of the SSA program. Among other things, ontologies are used for data sharing and integration. By applying ontology to ESA data, the ESA may better achieve its integration and innovation goals, while simultaneously improving the state of peaceful SSA.

- by Robert Rovetto
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- Artificial Intelligence, Applied Ontology, Knowledge Management, Knowledge Models

Moral objectivism based on a metaphysical dualism is no longer tenable. In his "Expanding Circle" Peter Singer argued for a moral objectivism based on "reason', but perfectly rational agents disagree on morality all the time. There are at least 5 reason for a moral subjectivism. Nevertheless we can often discuss moral claims in a quasi-objective fashion, simply because they often refer to mutual or shared interests. Based on a conference paper presented in 1991 in Liblice before the European Sociobiological Society.

- by Pouwel Slurink
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- Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Psychology, Human Evolution, Philosophy
- by Walid Saba
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- Artificial Intelligence, Logic, Natural Language Processing, Semantics

The design literature contains many diagrammatic models that represent the relationship between how designers intend artefacts to be experienced and how they are subsequently experienced by consumers, users and other stakeholders. Despite the prevalence of such models, they remain largely disconnected from each other, both within and across design disciplines, and also disconnected from the models of communication whose basic structure they share. The existing models are therefore difficult to locate and useful conceptual developments are often overlooked. The consequences of this are that unnecessary effort is expended in developing representations that duplicate those that already exist or new models are developed from inappropriate foundations. To address such issues, this article reviews many of the existing models that can be found in the different disciplines that comprise the fields of communication and design. The most pertinent features of these models are extracted and synthesised into a generic communication-based model of design. This acts as both a guide to what the existing models emphasise and an integrated foundation from which future models might be developed.

- by Anja Maier
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- Computer Science, Communication, Design, Project Management

— It is no surprise that the notion of situation is key to situation awareness. The development of the discipline can thus benefit from careful analysis of the notion. In this paper, we approach this by proposing an ontology of situations and scenes. The main contribution of this ontology is that it accounts for how situations progress in time changing qualitatively, constituting what we call scenes. The ontology is built by reusing basic elements from the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO). It addresses objects, occurrences, and their formal relations to situations and scenes. We use the theory of embodiment proposed by the philosopher Kit Fine to explicate how scenes and situations form wholes constituted of parts.

"Cette recherche est consacrée à l’examen du statut de l’écrit dans les ouvrages
scolaires et parascolaires. Nous procédons à une analyse d’exercices incluant des graphiques,
contenus dans les ouvrages de grandes maisons d’édition. Il s’agit d’exercices de mathématiques,
destinés à des élèves de Grande Section Maternelle. Notre objectif est de repérer dans
quelle mesure ces exercices favorisent un processus de raisonnement de la part de l’enfant.
Trois fonctions cognitives sont observées : la fonction de sélection-marquage, la fonction référentielle
et la fonction inférentielle. L’analyse que nous faisons montre que les représentations
graphiques (dessins) des exercices sont rarement conçues de façon à inciter les enfants à produire
des inférences mais que, par contre, elles mettent souvent en avant des correspondances
référentielles et sémantiques"

This paper brings up some important points about logic, e.g., mathematical logic, and also an inconsistence in logic as per Gödel's incompleteness theorems which state that there are mathematical truths that are not decidable or provable. These incompleteness theorems have shaken the solid foundation of mathematics where innumerable proofs and theorems have a place of pride. The great mathematician David Hilbert had been much disturbed by them. There are much long unsolved famous conjectures in mathematics, e.g., the twin primes conjecture, the Goldbach conjecture, the Riemann hypothesis, etc. Perhaps, by Gödel's incompleteness theorems the proofs for these famous conjectures will not be possible and the numerous mathematicians attempting to find the solutions for these conjectures are simply banging their heads against the metaphorical wall. Besides mathematics, Gödel's incompleteness theorems will have ramifications in other areas involving logic. This paper looks at the ramifications of the incompleteness theorems, which pose the serious problem of inconsistency, and offers a solution to this dilemma. The paper also looks into the apparent inconsistence of the axiomatic method in mathematics. [Published in international mathematics journal. Acknowledgments: The author expresses his gratitude to the referees and the Editor-in-Chief for their valuable comments in strengthening the contents of this paper.]

- by Bertrand Wong
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- Mathematics, Number Theory, Applied Mathematics, Geometry And Topology

This article discusses how language use affects reasoning and learning in educational settings. Interactions among (1) pupils in upper secondary school, (2) teachers in upper secondary school, and (3) student teachers studying to become secondary teachers were analysed. While previous studies have examined language use among pupils, teachers, and student teachers, respectively, little research has combined these perspectives. As such, this study provides additional insight into the educational discourse. Drawing on sociocultural, dialogical perspectives on learning, the authors of this article found that the inclusion of specialized language promotes learning and enhances professional awareness. These findings hold implications for teacher education and teacher professional development.

- by Gamze Sart
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- Creative Writing, Critical Theory, Entrepreneurship, Finance
- by Blake M Salemink
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- Religion, Mathematics, Algebra, Geometry And Topology

I wrote up the following tips a couple of years ago when I was teaching assistant for an introductory philosophy class at Yale led by Daniel Greco called “Problems in Philosophy.” The tips were intended, then, for college students, many of them right out of high school, and most of whom had never written a philosophy paper before. So the focus is on clarity and mastering the basics. With that in mind, I hope you will find these tips helpful for teaching or writing in philosophy (or any other relevant field or discipline).

- by Brian D . Earp
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- Philosophy, Education, Teaching English as a Second Language, Academic Writing

O presente guia descreve a criação de ontologias utilizando o editor de ontologia Protégé 5 (versão 5.2.0). Apresenta-se brevemente a linguagem OWL (Ontology Web Language), uma linguagem baseada em Lógica Descritiva, e enfatiza-se a construção de ontologias OWL-DL. Utiliza-se um Mecanismo de Inferência (Reasoner) baseado em lógica descritiva para verificar a consistência da ontologia e para computar automaticamente hierarquia de classes.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the application of foundational ontologies, i.e., formal ontological theories in the philosophical sense, to provide a theoretically sound foundation for improving the theory and practice of conceptual modeling. In this paper, we present advances on our re- search on the ontological foundations of conceptual modeling by addressing the concept of events. We present a foundational ontology of events (termed UFO- B) together with its axiomatization in first-order logic. Moreover, we report on an implementation of UFO-B using the computational logic language Alloy, and discuss its consistency, validation and possible uses.

- by Giancarlo Guizzardi and +1
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- Information Systems, Software Engineering, Information Systems (Business Informatics), Management Information Systems

There has been an extensive amount of research conducted internationally over the last four decades in the area of automated and semi-automated regulatory compliance checking for the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. This paper summarises the earlier research initiatives, explores common themes and different approaches used, as well as comparing the strengths and limitations of a number of major code compliance checking tools. Some of these tools have been implemented commercially and others are beginning to be adopted or are in their final stages of development. The paper also examines how readily these tools can be applied in the context of a performance-based code as found in New Zealand. Due to a recent push for innovation and productivity improvement in the AEC industry, there is an increased uptake of building information modelling (BIM) and the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) open standard data model for interoperability. The availability of high p...

Medições são atividades ubíquas, mas não unívocas. Seus componentes, unidades e resultados são tão familiares que escondem os esforços da história do seu nascimento: são convenções que se camuflam nos fenômenos. Seus processos conceituais são colas entre a experimentação e a teorização. Nos contextos em que são aplicadas, medições atuam como sinônimos de padronização, de controle e de confiabilidade. Mas são também sinônimos de conhecimento? Em função do seu inegável valor científico, o medir pode ser visto também como précondição do saber, ou ainda, como expressão máxima do conhecimento sobre um assunto. Sobre esse último ponto, pode-se argumentar que uma medição fornece representações numéricas válidas, exatas e objetivas, sendo representações fiéis do que está em alvo. Indagar se essas visões são corretas é iniciar uma busca pelas características epistemológicas que aproximam as medições do conhecimento, tema central desta tese. Em sentido amplo, esta tese versa sobre as relações entre as práticas de medida e a produção, justificação e o aprimoramento do conhecimento científico. Mais precisamente, sobre algumas propostas que visam compreender diferentes faces desses vínculos, isto é, abordagens epistêmicas sobre as medições. Em acepção histórico-disciplinar, essas propostas fomentam uma epistemologia sobre as medições, uma área de investigação filosófica relativamente recente. O principal objetivo desta tese é apresentar uma coleção de problemas a fim de chamar a atenção para o campo, pois embora venha recebendo cada vez mais atenção, permanece pouco discutido nos círculos filosóficos. Metodologicamente pensado para realizar um convite às discussões, o trabalho promove uma incursão por alguns dos temas da epistemologia sobre as medições, ressaltando suas conexões com discussões na epistemologia e na filosofia da ciência atual. Organizado em três partes, o trabalho fornece uma investigação propedêutica sobre o que são medições e alguns problemas epistêmicos tradicionalmente levantados sobre elas. Discute também como algumas posturas empiristas do último século se propuseram a pensar sobre esses problemas e alguns desafios levantados a elas. Finalmente, discorre sobre alguns projetos desse século e que estão em curso, chamando a atenção para o caminho profícuo em aproximá-los com os debates sobre a objetividade da ciência.

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason demonstrates that it is impossible to have knowledge of the thing in itself by means of either concepts or intuitions. The great student of Nishida Kitarō and Martin Heidegger, Japanese philosopher, Keiji Nishitani (1900–1990), does not seem to dispute Kant’s claim that the thing in itself cannot be known by means of reason or indeed by any act of consciousness whatever. But for Nishitani the Critique does not demonstrate that it is impossible to experience or obtain awareness of the thing in itself through purely non-subjective, non- representational, and non-conceptual means. In what follows, I recon- struct Nishitani’s formulation of the paradox of representation and show how his method of resolving the paradox provides an argument against Kant, that one can know the thing in itself by non-conceptual means. For Nishitani it appears that the impossibility of knowing the thing in itself by means of reason shows a new path forward. Rather than attempt to know the thing in itself by means of reason or subjectivity in general, we can still gain access to the thing in itself by transcending reason and subjectivity altogether. To state this even more generally: insofar as philosophy itself performs its rational work from the standpoint of subjectivity (whether implicitly or explicitly), we can apprehend the thing in itself by transcending the standpoint of philosophy. In Nishitani’s terms, the only way to know the thing in itself is by “breaking through self-consciousness” (Nishitani 1983, 16–17).

The importance and interest in agriculture field nowadays contributed to the rapid increasing of the deluge fruits images, for instance; durian images. With hundreds of durian varieties, it will be a challenging task to differentiate the images of this crop. Furthermore, with the existing of semantic gap, the current search engine unable to retrieve only the relevant varieties images to the user. Hence, applying semantic technology became the crucial thing in order to bridge the semantic gap. Thus, this paper will discuss about the durian varieties and its characteristics in order to differentiate and determine the images of a durian variety with other varieties. These characteristics then will be employed later in the Conceptual Graph to construct and semantically represent the knowledge regarding of durian varieties and its characteristics.

- by Robert Rovetto
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- Ontology, Applied Ontology, Semantic Web Technologies, Informatics

Knowledge management is currently changing significantly. KM effectively uses the right information and communication technology (ICT) and social interaction. New ways that exist in the virtual world make it possible to support knowledge and the process of acquiring it because to create knowledge and the process of sharing knowledge in a virtual world environment takes into account the social aspects needed. With the use of web 2.0 technologies, the main communication media in Second Life in the form of text, voice, instant messaging (IM), email and blogs can be maximized. By conducting exploratory analysis on "second life" research that contributes to a general understanding of how technology can be used to support or activate KM in education. College Student and lecturer can participate in teaching and learning processes, while academic staff supports the University business processes. A result provides factors that effects increase and impairment on student score, framework of 4 Pillar Solution Model for Second Life Education is formed and evaluation knowledge sharing maturity using COBIT 4.1 Framework and Maturity Level Classification using CMMI Model.

Integration/differentiation of mental processes is major mechanism of development. Developmental theories ascribe intellectual development to it. In psychometric theory, Spearman's law of diminishing returns postulates that increasing g allows increasing differentiation of cognitive abilities, because increased mental power allows variable investment in domain-specific learning. Empirical evidence has been inconsistent so far, with some studies supporting and others contradicting this mechanism. This state of affairs is due to a developmental phenomenon: Both differentiation and strengthening of relations between specific processes and g may happen but these changes are phase-specific and ability-specific, depending upon the developmental priorities in the formation of g in each phase. We present eight studies covering the age span from 4 to 85 years in support of this phenomenon. Using new powerful modeling methods we showed that differentiation and binding of mental processes in g occurs in cycles. Specific processes intertwine with g at the beginning of cycles when they are integrated into it; when well established, these processes may vary with increasing g, reflecting its higher flexibility. Representational knowledge, inductive inference and awareness of it, and grasp of logical constraints framing inference are the major markers of g, first intertwining with in their respective cycles and differentiating later during the periods of 2–6, 7–11, and 11–20 years, respectively. The implications of these findings for an overarching cognitive developmental/differential theory of human mind are discussed.

- by Andreas Demetriou and +6
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- Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Intelligence, Cognitive development

This paper describes BABAR, a knowledge extraction and representation system, completely implemented in CLOS, that is primarily geared towards organizing and reasoning about knowledge extracted from the Wikipedia Website. The system combines natural language processing techniques, knowledge representation paradigms and machine learning algorithms. BABAR is currently an ongoing independent research project, that when sufficiently mature, may provide various commercial opportunities.
BABAR uses natural language processing to parse both page name and page contents. It automatically generates Wikipedia topic taxonomies thus providing a model for organizing the approximately 4,000,000 existing Wikipedia pages. It uses similarity metrics to establish concept relevancy and clustering algorithms to group topics based on semantic relevancy. Novel algorithms are presented that combine approaches from the areas of machine learning and recommender systems. The system also generates a knowledge hypergraph which will ultimately be used in conjunction with an automated reasoner to answer questions about particular topics. This paper describes the CLOS implementation of the various subcomponents of BABAR. These include a recursive descent parser, a hypergraph component, a number of new clustering and classification approaches and Horn clause theorem prover. Finally this papers suggests how such a system can be used to implement a new generation of browsers called knowledge browsers.

Why do people create extra representations to help them make sense of situations, diagrams, illustrations, instructions, and problems? What extra power do these representations give us? The obvious explanation – external representations save internal memory and computation – is only part of the story. I discuss eight ways external representations enhance cognitive power: they change the cost structure of the inferential landscape; they provide a structure that can serve as a shareable object of thought; they create persistent referents; they facilitate re-representation; they are often a more natural representation of structure than mental representations; they facilitate the computation of more explicit encoding of information; they enable the construction of arbitrarily complex structure; and they lower the cost of controlling thought – they help coordinate thought. Jointly, these functions allow people to think more powerfully with external representations than without. They allow us to think the previously unthinkable.

- by David Kirsh
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- Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Mental Representation, Situated Cognition

L a référence aux représentations mentales joue un rôle central dans notre vision du monde. Non seulement leur existence semble indéniable, mais elles permettent d'expliquer un grand nombre de phénomènes : la conscience, la perception, les opérations cognitives, le langage, les réalités sym-boliques, les conduites individuelles et collectives. Aussi sont-elles étudiées par les psychologues, les sociologues, les anthropologues, les linguistes, les neu-roscientifiques, etc. Cette puissance explicative paraît résulter du fait que le caractère représentionnel des représentations incarnées, corporelles, obser-vables, dériverait d'une capacité représentationnelle primordiale de l'esprit. Il est pourtant notoirement difficile de concevoir comment les représenta-tions mentales pourraient jouer ce rôle, et cela pour plusieurs raisons. 1° Leur caractère mental rend plus mystérieuse encore la relation représentationnelle, puisque, celle-ci devant relier des esprits d'un côté, et des corps de l'autre, cette relation serait ontologiquement hétérogène. 2° Si la relation de représenta-tion s'explique par des représentations mentales, le caractère représentation-nel d'une représentation mentale devrait également s'expliquer par une autre représentation mentale, et ainsi de suite, si bien qu'on voit mal comment une relation quelconque pourrait être instaurée. 3° Les représentations mentales ne sont directement accessibles que par introspection : admettre dans les expli-cations scientifiques des faits directement connus par une seule personne, ne serait-ce pas ouvrir la voie à toutes les dérives ? 4° Tous les scientifiques ne s'accordent pas sur la nature ou le format des représentations mentales : sont-elles des images ? Des propositions ? Des intentionnalités sui generis ?… Le constat nous met devant une alternative : soit nous parvenons à conce-voir les représentations mentales, soit nous devons apprendre à nous en pas-ser. Ce sont chacune de ces deux voies qu'explore cet ouvrage. La philosophe Natalie Depraz est professeure à l'Université de Rouen Normandie et membre des Archives-Husserl (ENS Paris-CNRS). Le philosophe raphaël KüNstler est PRAG à l'Université de Toulouse-Jean Jaurès.

- by Raphaël Künstler and +4
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- Cognitive Psychology, Perception, Social Representations, Mental Representation

In this essay, I argue that a proper understanding of the Cartesian proof of the external world sheds light on some vexatious questions concerning his theory of sense perception. Three main points emerge from the discussion: a picture of the mind, conceived as the power of understanding, as essentially related to the physical world; an extension of rationality such that it includes a set of necessities that neither can be deduced from the principles furnished by pure understanding alone nor are to be found among the particular items of sense experience; and a conception of human sense perception as a composite power that includes sensory awareness as well as understanding, and so that establishes a sharp distinction between human and animal sensory awareness. As far as agency is a constitutive ingredient of human sense perception, Descartes’ doctrine is in line with some current versions of a virtue epistemology.

- by Wayne Christensen and +1
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- Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Mental Representation, Cognition
- by Rita Li
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- Computer Science, Ethics, Communication, Web 2.0

The paper analyses possible reasons for the gap between teachers’ actions and intentions, reported by research on practices with the use of ICT. The theoretical approach is informed by teachers’ beliefs, which are discriminated in two categories: pedagogical and epistemic. A qualitative fieldwork research undertaken in eight public primary schools in Rio de Janeiro between 2014 and 2019 presents empirical evidence of the relationship between ICT use in the classroom and teachers’ beliefs. Data collection took place in two phases, and the data set consists of: (1) sixty four semi-structured interviews with teachers of the eight schools; (2) two focus groups with teachers in two schools, selected among the eight initial schools. Main findings show the importance of ICT self-efficacy at the core of teacher’s pedagogical beliefs, as skills and knowledge are built upon direct experience and observation of others. Furthermore, epistemic beliefs are strongly related to pedagogical beliefs and teachers’ attitudes. Findings show that the most innovative teachers are those who conceive ICT as a cultural artefact, have an ecological view of the classroom, and translate their intentions into actions, facing uncertainty and possible failure.

- by Magda Pischetola
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- Constructivism, Teachers' self efficacy levels, Self-Efficacy, ICT in Education
- by Balbinder Singh Bhogal
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- Religion, Buddhism, History of Ideas, Literature