Proposed Optimal Growth Pathfinding Method Based on Growth Trajectories

In this study, the authors propose an optimal growth pathfinding method to support learners in effectively mastering a set of capabilities. Under the assumption of prerequisite relationships among learning objectives, the main processes of the method are as follows: 1 extracting the capability structure from growth trajectories, 2 remodeling the problem as a traveling salesman problem with restrictions among learning objectives, and 3 generating the cost matrix and obtaining the optimal growth path. In addition, a flexible approach to data standardization as a step of capability structure extraction is discussed. The proposed method is also applied to a software engineer growth dataset with 30 responders.