Categorical scoring of Entrepreneurial Mindset concept maps with a custom codebook - Case Study from Rowan University
Categorical scoring of Entrepreneurial Mindset concept maps with a custom codebook - Case Study from Rowan University
At Rowan University in the Sophomore Engineering Clinic II (SEC II), we teach engineering design and oral communication to students. One of the goals of the course is to create a conceptual business model around drone technology to address one crucial societal or world problem.
We use concept maps as a tool to assess the development of the students' Entrepreneurial Mindset (EM).
Course context: Sophomore year for students of all engineering majors. Although students are familiar with the EM concept it is not directly taught in this class.
Assignment: construct-a-map with EM as the central topic
Codebook: EM categories and description
Example: Scored EM CMap
Two big lessons learned:
Reinforce the use of linking words in the Cmaps. Without those linking words, it would be less precise to categorize the concepts. I asked the students to resubmit the map if there were no or very few linking words in the concepts. My personal preference was to avoid categorizing a concept (or assigning it under the category of the parent concept) if there was not a linking word.
The complexity index adds more value when comparing two Cmaps. By itself, the complexity index is a number that does not necessarily reflects how good the camp is. However, when comparing it with previous maps of the same student, it could show whether they are making progress in their EM development. I did not use the score as a means to obtain a grade because students would be tempted to artificially make it higher.