| Chapter 1: | Study One: Introduction / Overview of Study Goals |
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The methods for eliciting and representing knowledge are all based on spatial issues related to the semantic proximities between concepts. Such techniques include word association proximities, similarity ratings, card sort, and tree construction tasks. The basis for each of these techniques is the perceived proximity of the concepts in the knowledge structure. Concepts that are closer together should be activated more quickly than those that are further apart. Conveying structural knowledge is associated with more demanding tasks that require higher-order mental operations. These techniques are more explicit and require the actual mapping of knowledge structure. Some suggested techniques include semantic maps, concept maps, spider maps, and graphic organizers (see Jonassen, et al., 1993 for further information regarding these techniques). The important distinction to keep in mind is that there are detailed techniques for assessing structure and organization and less detailed techniques that tap structure and organization without explicitly analyzing them.
Knowledge density has been helpful in understanding knowledge structure. Density has been applied to hypermedia systems as a way of examining the connectedness of the informational nodes comprising the system (Astleitner & Leutner, 1996). It is calculated by counting the number of links in the system and then dividing this number by the sum of all possible links. Researchers have also applied density to human knowledge structures as a measure of node connectedness (Eveland, Cortese, et al., 2004; Eveland, Marton, & Seo, 2004). The format for this analysis requires that the subject create a matrix of concepts (concepts can either be freely recalled by the subject or provided by the researcher) by listing all concepts on the top and left of the matrix. Then, they can indicate relatedness of each concept to every other concept in the space where each intersects in the matrix. A density score can then be calculated.
One technique for analyzing knowledge structure is concept mapping. According to Jonassen, et al. (1993), in comparison with other techniques for representing knowledge structure, concept mapping is the most appropriate.