title: Concept mapping internal validity: A case of misconceived mapping?
abstract: Since the early 1990s, the concept mapping technique developed by William M. K. Trochim has been widely used by evaluators for program development and evaluation and proven to be an invaluable tool for evaluators and program planners. The technique combines qualitative and statistical analysis and is designed to help identify and prioritize the components, dimensions, and particularities of a given reality. The aim of this paper is to propose an alternative way of conducting the statistical analysis to make the technique even more useful and the results easier to interpret. We posit that some methodological choices made at the inception stage of the technique were ill informed, producing maps of participants' points-of-view that were not optimal representations of their reality. Such a depiction resulted from the statistical analysis process by which multidimensional scaling (MDS) is being applied on the similarity matrix, followed by a hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) on the Euclidian distances between statements as plotted on the resulting two-dimensional MDS map. As an alternative, we suggest that HCA should be performed first and MDS second, rather than the reverse. To support this proposal, we present three levels of argument: 1) a logical argument backed up by expert opinions on this issue; 2) statistical evidence of the superiority of our proposed approach and 3) the results of a social validation experiment.
authors.affiliation: Provalis Research, 1255 Robert Bourassa Blvd Suite 1604, Montréal, QC H3B 3X3, Canada. Electronic address: peladeau@provalisresearch.com.
authors.forename: Normand
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Péladeau
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Pavillon Marie-Victorin, Room C355, P.O. Box 6128, Centre-ville Station, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3J7, Canada.
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dagenais
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Montreal School of Public Health (ESPUM), Montreal, Canada; University of Montreal Public Health Research Institute (IRSPUM), Montreal, Canada.
authors.forename: Valéry
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ridde
mesh_terms: D016000:Cluster Analysis; D006801:Humans; D015397:Program Evaluation / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design
keywords: Concept mapping; Evaluation methods; Hierarchical cluster analysis; Internal validity; Multidimensional scaling