A Combined Method of Indscal and Cognitive Mapping for Describing Changes in Students' Cognitive Structure

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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative and quantitative technique for describing changes in the cognitive organization of science concepts. An individual difference model in multidimensional scaling and cognitive mapping were jointly used to describe temporal changes in students' conceptual framework and to describe changes in individual students' frameworks with respect to their peers and their instructor. The results from three studies show that the method (a) is sensitive to changes in student cognitive frameworks; (b) indicates no changes in either amount of knowledge or in their content organization for uninstructed students; (c) indicates shifts in students' cognitive frame works toward those of their instructor; and (d) distinguishes between individuals of varying expertise both quantitatively and qualitatively. The paper discusses the advantages of the technique and its application to the study of longitudinal changes in cognitive structure.