Concept Map Assessment

Once a student finishes with a concept map assignment, he or she can have the concept map graded by clicking the Evaluate Concept Map button that is located above the concept map applet. The evaluation program is an experimental expert system that compares the student's concept map to the instructor's concept map and produces a report.

The general approach to concept map assessment is as follows. For a review of the terms used, see the Introduction page.

• Propositions: The expert system looks for propositions that match. Matching does not have to be exact if the instructor provides a list of synonyms for concept and relation labels.
• Used concepts and relations: Credit is given for each node and concept that the student uses that are also in the instructor's concept map.
• Unused concepts and relations: The score is reduced based on the number of distractor concepts and relations that the student uses. Distractors are deemed not to be salient to the topic at hand by the instructor.
• Paths: It is typical for beginning students to construct concept maps that have less detail than the instructor's version, i.e., fewer concepts and relations are used. In some cases, a concept is left out of a path of the form concept-1, relation-1, concept-2, relation-2, ..., concept-n, relation-n. For example, a student relates concept a to concept b, but the instructor relates concept a to concept c and concept c to concept b. In this case, the expert system gives partical credit.
• Others: Other grading rules are also being tested.

Here is the sample output for a simple concept map:

Your thoughts and suggestions on the grading program would be appreciated. Email us at cm at ultra.isis.vt.edu