‘A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing’: A method to automatically detect knowledge compartmentalization and oversimplification

Simplification is a common practice to allow students to understand complex concepts. However, such practice may lead to oversimplification and knowledge compartmentalization problems. This paper proposes a method to minimize the effects of oversimplification and knowledge compartmentalization through a five-step processing chain, following instructional design principles, to foster advanced knowledge acquisition. The proposed method was applied to online courses and a discussion for an example of a Data Science course is provided to show its applicability.