Concept Maps and Assessment: A Proposal for Extending Course-Level Measurments to Discipline and Curriculum-Level Learning
Lee A. Freeman and Andrew Urbaczewski
Assessment of student learning objectives is often accomplished via in-class projects and/or examinations. These techniques, and others like exit interviews, provide faculty and administrators with a means of measuring what the students have learned in a particular course, discipline (MIS, Marketing, etc.), or an entire degree program or curriculum (BBA, MBA, etc.). Faculty are accustomed to course-level assessment, as this is the predominant method for determining student grades. Faculty are presumably much less comfortable with or used to this kind of assessment when it comes to assessing the discipline (i.e., the major or concentration), and to a greater extent the entire degree or curriculum. However, various accreditation organizations now require such assessment at various levels within schools of business. An alternative method of measuring the knowledge of students is to use mental models, and specifically concept maps. Concept maps provide a visual representation of conceptual and relationship knowledge within a particular domain. This paper outlines the potential uses of concept maps for assessment requirements at the course, discipline, and curriculum levels through a description of the assessment requirements, an introduction to concept mapping theory and practice, and an outline of possible directions for use.
Keywords: IA – IS Education, IA01 – IS Curriculum
Lee A. Freeman is an Associate Professor of MIS and the Director of Technology and Online Education in the School of Management at The University of Michigan – Dearborn. He has a B.A. from The University of Chicago, and he received both his M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Information Systems from Indiana University. His teaching interests include systems analysis and design, information security, and human-computer interaction; and his primary research interests include the conceptualization and use of information systems knowledge, systems analysis and design, information ethics, and information security. He has published over 25 refereed manuscripts in journals and conferences, including MIS Quarterly, the Communications of the ACM, Information Systems Frontiers, the Journal of IS Education, and Communications of the AIS, among others. He can be reached at lefreema@umd.umich.edu.
Andrew Urbaczewski is an Associate Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of Michigan - Dearborn. He received a Ph.D. in Information Systems from Indiana University, and also holds an MBA from West Virginia University and a BS in Finance (with honors) from the University of Tennessee. His research interests include wireless mobile collaboration, electronic commerce, and electronic monitoring of employees. He has published over 25 refereed manuscripts in several prestigious journals and conferences, including the Journal of Management Information Systems, Communications of the ACM, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, and Communications of the AIS. Andrew has much international experience in research and teaching. He has delivered several executive education and traditional student programs throughout Europe, focusing mainly on Finland through his rich relationship with the Helsinki School of Economics, HSE-International Center Mikkeli, and Mikkeli Polytechnic Institute. Prior to returning to academia, Andrew was a consultant to several waste management and pollution prevention programs for the United States Department of Energy in Washington, DC and at the DOE sites at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN.
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