Source of knowledge dynamics-transition from high school to university

Abstract

The paper addresses the dynamics of education by using Markov chains, a powerful probabilistic model able to make predictions on how sources of knowledge either change or stabilize over adulthood. To this end, each student filled in a survey that rated, on a scale from 1 to 5, the utility of five different sources of knowledge. They completed this survey twice, once for their previous and once for their current education. The authors then fitted a Markov chain to these data-essentially, calculating transition probabilities from one ranking of sources of knowledge to another-and inferred the final maximum utility sources of knowledge via the stationary distribution. The overall conclusion is the following: even if the professor used to play a crucial role in early development, students have the tendency to become independent in their learning process, relying more on online materials and less on printed books and libraries.