Improving the evaluation of concept maps: a step-by-step analysis

Concept maps have been around for quite some time, and their principles are deeply rooted on well-known learning theories. When used in the evaluation process as a tool to assess learning it has obvious benefits since it allows students to externalize their own mental trees of assimilated concepts seamlessly. However, the evaluation process of concept maps includes a strong degree of subjectiveness, which should be mitigated. In this paper we propose partitioning the concept map evaluation process according to the steps followed for creating them, along with objective metrics to assign a score to each of these steps. We propose a formula that combines the partial scores to obtain the final score. Afterward we validate the evaluation technique showing that the score variability associated with the evaluator is significantly reduced, while maintaining similar values for the score in terms of mean and standard deviation.