Process
Group concept mapping involves a structured multi-step process, including brainstorming, sorting and rating, multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis, and the generation and interpretation of multiple maps. The first step requires participants to brainstorm a large set of statements relevant to the topic of interest, usually in response to a focus prompt. Participants are then asked to individually sort those statements into categories based on their perceived similarity and rate each statement on one or more scales, such as importance or feasibility.
The data is then analyzed using The Concept System® software, which creates a series of interrelated maps using multidimensional scaling (MDS) of the sort data, hierarchical cluster analysis of the MDS coordinates applying Ward’s method, and the computation of average ratings for each statement and cluster of statements. The resulting maps display the individual statements in two-dimensional space with more similar statements located closer to each other, and grouped into clusters that partition the space on the map. The Concept System® software also creates other maps that show the statements in each cluster rated on one or more scales, and absolute or relative cluster ratings between two cluster sets. As a last step in the process, participants are led through a structured interpretation session to better understand and label all the maps.
Read more about this topic: Structured Concept Mapping
Famous quotes containing the word process:
“Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“The toddler’s wish to please ... is a powerful aid in helping the child to develop a social awareness and, eventually, a moral conscience. The child’s love for the parent is so strong that it causes him to change his behavior: to refrain from hitting and biting, to share toys with a peer, to become toilet trained. This wish for approval is the parent’s most reliable ally in the process of socializing the child.”
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“The moralist and the revolutionary are constantly undermining one another. Marx exploded a hundred tons of dynamite beneath the moralist position, and we are still living in the echo of that tremendous crash. But already, somewhere or other, the sappers are at work and fresh dynamite is being tamped in place to blow Marx at the moon. Then Marx, or somebody like him, will come back with yet more dynamite, and so the process continues, to an end we cannot foresee.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)