Mental Model Analysis

	Purpose "Human beings understand the world by constructing models of it in their minds" (Johnson-Laird, 1983)²⁵; therefore, the analysis of students' mental models provides insight into the content and structure of the knowledge individuals taking a course construct. Typically depicted as a set of components or features of some phenomena and the structural relationships among those components, mental models can be characterized as more or less accurate, functional, or "expert," allowing both qualitative and quantitative assessment of the understandings students bring to, leave with, and develop over the course of a given instructional intervention. Description A variety of different data sources can be used as the basis from which to infer individual's mental models. Typically, student written text or transcripts are analyzed for their semantic content and diagrammed as networks. Such network diagrams contain nodes representing the component elements or concepts included or inferred from the data and directional links representing relationships between those components. The networks so generated can then be characterized in a variety of different ways. General Requirements Some analytic framework is needed to assess the networks representing students' mental models. Often, some form of scoring rubric is used. For example, if the instructor is interested in the completeness, accuracy, and complexity of students' mental models, he or she might code the network diagrams inferred from student data in such terms and then compare these characteristics of students' mental models to the mental models of experts in the domain. Such rubrics can be developed a priori, based on an "ideal" or "expert" mental model of the given topic or phenomena, or post-hoc, based on (some portion of) the data itself. Limitations Because mental models are constantly evolving representations of reality, they are incomplete and often only partially accurate. Do not be surprised when students' representations of, for example, some phenomenon covered in their course, contain errors, contradictions, and simplifications. Because they are idiosyncratic, making comparisons among students can be difficult without some form of quantification. Variations Concept maps are mental model representations which students build themselves using paper or specialized software (see the examples below). Research has found that the data generated through students' own mental mapping is parallel in content to data generated through more labor intensive research strategies such as interviews (Markham, Mintzes, & Jones, 1994).




	Example Research Studies Calvani, Sorzio, & Varisco (1997) Derry, Gance, Gance, & Schlager (2000) Siegel, Derry, Steinkuehler, Kim, & Seymour (2001) Additional Resources Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983). Mental models: Towards a cognitive science of language, inference, and consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.²⁵ Jonassen, D. H. (1995). Operationalizing mental models: Strategies for assessing mental models to support meaningful learning and design-supportive learning environments. Proceedings of the Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL) Conference. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ²⁶ Markham, K., Mintzes, J. & Jones, G. (1994). The concept map as a research and evaluation tool: Further evidence of validity. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 31(1): 91-101. ³⁴