Requirements:

• 1. Excel 2007 version

  2. Windows PC computer

  3. You must open Excel and select Tools/Macros/Security and set to Medium security level.

I. Populate jMAP with the Pre-selected Factors

[ See video ]

• 1. Establish a list of factors & outcomes (up to 15 maximum) that your group has decided to examine and analyze using causal maps.

  2. Select one member of your group to perform the remaining steps described in this section (section I)

  3. Open jMAP with MS Excel 2007+ using Windows PC

  4. Go to MyMap page and delete any previous maps by clicking button "Delete Map"

  5. Click MyMatrix tab to go the MyMatrix page

  6. In the column of cells located immediately below the cell titled "Factors & Link Values", type in the names of the factors (up to 15 factors maximum) that your group has agreed to examine (one factor per cell)

  7. To add the factors listed in the matrix to MyMap, click 'Add Factors to Map' button located at the bottom of the MyMatrix page

  8. At the top of the MyMap page, click on the cell to the right of 'Group ID' and enter a unique Group ID that your group members will use to submit and download their maps.

  9. Save the file and distribute the jMAP file to group members.

  10. Instruct group members to name and save the file using their name (or assigned member number) and map number 1 (if this is their first iteration of the map), or '2' if this is the second iteration of the map, and etc.

II. Create Your Personal Causal Map

[ See video ]

• 1. Open Excel and select Tools/Macros/Security and set to Medium security level

  2. Open the pre-configured jMAP file containing the pre-selected factors that your group have agreed to examine

  3. Go to MyMap page (or type ctrl-n)

  4. Click Edit button located in lower left corner of the page.

  5. Click NewLink button to link ( see video ) and specify the cause-effect relationships between the factors on the map. Using your best judgment, specify the following:

  6. a) strength of causal link with values 1 = weak, 2 = moderate, 3 = strong causal impact. For example, if A increases learning by 25%, and B increases learning by 100%, you might assign the link between A and ‘learning’ a value of 1 (weak) and the link between B and learning a value of 3 (strong).

  7. b) the plausibility (how much truth?) of the proposed link based on the level of evidenciary support gleaned from your personal knowledge and personal observations from past experiences with group work/assignments (see Excel worksheet from Activity 2.3). Refer back to your original notes about their inter-relationship (including the specific instructional context) you produced in Activity 2.3.1. Use some of the same tips described in that section to identify important cause-effect relationships between the factors/events and learning outcome. Apply the causal map criteria (see Part 1 above) as you rearrange and link the factors and outcomes.

  8. Position and Connect Factors with Links. Connect the factors with your links and position the factors on the map to convey the temporal sequence of events (from left to right) that lead to the desired learning outcome. See video instructions.

  9. To annotate and provide explanations for each link you add to your map, click on a link and type Ctrl-R. To edit/delete a comment, repeat this step and enter a blank space to delete the comment. All comments are recorded in the MyMatrix page.

  10. Click UpdateMatrix to record links to the MyMatrix page (a table representation of your causal map). If jMAP finds any loose links that are not "connected" to their intended factors, jMAP will locate and highlight (one at a time) the bad link. Once you fix a link, click UpdateMatrix again.

  11. Click Save Map button to save a copy of your map and matrix to a new Excel file.

III. Download & Aggregate Individual Maps into Group Map

[ See video ]

• 1. To download other students' maps in jMAP, create one file directory to store your jMAP software and all the students' jmap files.

  2. Open jMAP and go to MapIndex page (ctrl-M). Note steps I and II listed above must be completed before you can compare your map other maps.

  3. Click 'Download Maps' button

  4. Once the map data is downloaded, you will be prompted to type y to proceed. Type y to write the data from each downloaded map into individual matrices. In each downloaded matrix, you will see dark green, light green, and gray colored cells in the matrices that identify links that match (dark green = matching link and link strength, light green = matching link but strength value not matching) and do not match you map (in gray) relative to the links recorded in MyMatrix page.

  5. Go to the MapIndex page ctrl-m).

  6. Select the maps you would like to aggregate into one matrix. By instructing members in your group to save and name their files by their name (or assigned member number) followed by map number (e.g. 8.1.xls for map produced at time one, and 8.1.xls for map produced at time two), you can click the Select button and type, for example, '1' to select all matrices from files ending with '1' (all maps produced at time one).

  7. Click Aggregate button and name the worksheet you want to store the aggregated data e.g. g1 for all maps produced at time 1). Click OK and jMAP will: a) automatically import all the matrices from the other jmap files located in the jmap directory; and b) tally the number of times each link was observed in all the maps (right matrix) and compute the mean strength value (left matrix) of each link based on the values observed in ONLY the maps that possess the link (not across all maps)

  8. When asked if you want to round off the mean strength values observed across all the maps selected to the group map, type y or n. Rounding off the decimal values can help to clean up the data by ignoring links that average below .50 in strength value.

  9. In the next prompt, you are asked on what criterion you wish to accept or ignore the links. For example, you can enter 25 to include only those links that were present in 25% or more of the maps. Links that were observed in less that 25% of the maps are not included in the group map. Enter a value between 0 and 100 and click OK.