Ontology-based Thought Organization Support System to Prompt Readiness of Intention Sharing and Its Long-term Practice

Abstract

To achieve fruitful, creative discussions, it is important for speakers to verbalize and share the intentions behind their utterances with their listeners. Our research objective is to propose an activity support system for cultivating novice researchers’ intention sharing skills. We develop a research activity support system in which researchers can focus on organizing the structure of their thought processes in a pyramid made of chains of inquiries and answers. Then, we explain the support functions, evaluate the system, and explain the results. After learners used the system for about one year, we found that they experienced positive changes in their critical thinking and intention sharing skills. In addition, we found indications that the system was especially useful as a set of “training wheels” for relatively novice researchers.