Previous: Assessment  Main page  Next: Aims

	Background -- concept maps Concept maps were invented by Joseph Novak in the 1960s for use as a teaching tool. They are quite simple: labelled boxes represent concepts in a syllabus, and lines or arrows denote relationships between the concepts. If students develop a concept map at the start of a course, then teaching staff will have a better idea of their preexisting conceptual framework. Teachers can also present a course syllabus in the form of a concept map, showing how the ideas being taught are interrelated. Students can also use concept maps as a notetaking tool, to represent the information in an article or to depict the structure of a novel. It is clear how these activities fit in with a constructivist view of the teaching process. William Trochim (1986) later developed the concept map into a strategic planning tool for use in the design of organisational components. Trochim's technique differs significantly from Novak's original idea in that, while Novak's maps are generated for one person as a means of communicating complex ideas to many, Trochim's are generated by many people as a means of developing complex ideas. The sample concept map below is from Trochim (1989)and was generated by stakeholders in Cornell University's Health Services. In Trochim's method, a group of participants are collected that have some stake in the organisation that is planned. Initially, participants brainstorm to compile a list of concepts, which are then written on separate index cards. Each participant then sorts the cards into piles of related concepts. It is important that no constraints are placed upon the participants' sorting. The results of the sorting are then tabulated, and a correlation matrix M is created from those results. If concepts i and j were grouped together by N participants, then M[i,j] = N. The grouping relation is commutative, so the matrix M will be symmetrical. Cluster analysis is then carried out on the correlation matrix to group the concepts into categories, and the categories are examined by the participants to see what the concepts in each have in common. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is then applied to generate a 2D image of the domain, in which the degree of correlation is inversely proportional to the distance between the categories. This map can then be used to design new organisational structures, to define the responsibilities of the new organisation, to communicate its purpose to clients, and for many other purposes.
Concept mapping for introductory programming Thesis main page Introduction and background     Background: education     Assessment     Background: concept maps   Aims     Competency mapping     Benefits
Method and results
Data sets
Method
Results
Random data
Analysis and conclusions
Factor analysis
Cluster analysis
Methodological problems
A better test
Conclusion
Appendix I: Datasets
Appendix II: Activities
Appendix III: MDS coordinates
Appendix IV: Data generation scripts
Bibliography

Previous: Assessment  Main page  Next: Aims