Learning thresholds in formal concept analysis

Abstract

This paper views Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) from an educational perspective. Novice users of FCA who are not mathematicians might find diagrams of concept lattices counter-intuitive and challenging to read. According to educational theory, learning thresholds are concepts that are difficult to learn and easy to be misunderstood. Experts of a domain are often not aware of such learning thresholds. This paper explores learning thresholds occurring in FCA teaching material drawing on examples from a discrete structures class taught to first year computer science students.