The Relationship between Accuracy in Students’ Causal Diagrams

Will present in 2010 AECT conference at Anaheim

The Relationship between Accuracy in Students’ Causal Diagrams, Total links, Temporal Flow, and Node Positions

Woon Jee Lee & Allan Jeong

The purpose of this study was to identify what types of requirements can be placed into causal mapping activities to improve accuracy in students’ diagrams. A case-study approach was used to examine the correlation between the accuracy of students’ causal diagrams (ratio of correctly/incorrectly identified root causes, and total number of correctly identified root links) and three structural qualities: total number of causal links (parsimony), ratio of right/left pointing links (temporal flow), and distance of outcome node from left edge of screen (node position).

Full abstract: revising ... will post later

What is jMap?

jMAP is an MS Excel-based software program used to: 1) construct causal diagrams; 2) automatically code diagrams into adjacency matrices; 3) upload, download, and aggregate matrix data to share and view the maps of individual learners, collective learners, and/or experts; 4) graphically superimpose the maps of an individual, group, and expert (in any paired combination) to determine the degree to which a learner's diagram, for example, matches the expert’s or the diagrams of the collective group; 5) graphically superimpose the diagrams of individuals or the collective group produced over different time periods to visualize and quantitatively assess how diagrams change over time, and the extent to which the changes converge towards a target model (expert or collective group); 6) report the percentage of submitted diagrams that possess a causal link between two factors/variables and the average causal strength value assigned to the causal link; and 7) measure how specific discourse events and processes (e.g., degree to which evidence is presented, degree to which the merits of presented evidence is thoroughly cross-examined) trigger changes in the causal diagrams/understanding of the learner.