2.7 PITFALLS AND POINTERS OF CONCEPT MAPPING PRACTICE
Concept mapping requires skill, which may take some time to acquire. It is unreasonable to expect to be completely successful at the first attempts at building maps. The first challenge is to listen to what is being said without appearing distracted by the act of concurrently creating the map. The mapper must be able to build maps progressively, though at first this seems very difficult as the early concepts might have to be recorded as seemingly disconnected ideas on an otherwise blank sheet of paper.
It is essential to practise mapping skills in situations where there is little pressure. Focus can then be applied to creating cogent and logically complete maps. Further practice is needed to build increasingly complicated maps with confidence. Initially, building maps is slow and tedious. It is suggested that building maps from written records might be attempted first. Doing this builds confidence in an environment where there should be little or no pressure of time. Like someone building their speed-reading and comprehension skills, the next stage involves building maps under pressure of time. It is useful at this stage to have others read and interpret your maps, in turn, explaining them to you. This should confirm that the maps actually make sense to you and others, and that you are not creating maps that are a form of individualised shorthand.
During interviews, it is essential that the person building the maps control the speed of delivery of verbal information by the interviewee. The challenge here is to control speed to the extent that the key concepts and linkages can be faithfully recorded without loss of continuity or loss of concentration on the part of the interviewee. This can be achieved by occasionally feeding back, from the map, selected important ideas to the interviewee. Doing so provides the person building the maps with an opportunity to catch up, filling in the gaps in the map and confirming details. This gives the interviewee confidence that the interview and the mapping activities are supporting each other in a constructive sense.
Experience is needed to progressively link all the strands of ideas being discussed into appropriately aggregated issues and issues into respective themes, especially when these may be physically recorded on different parts of the page. Before starting, it is important to realise that during the interview there will be no time to re-draw the map during the interview. However, redrawing will be necessary immediately afterward, and several revisions may be necessary. A useful technique to try at this point is to take time out during the interview to ask the interviewee to elaborate key points, thereby providing time to fill in the gaps in the map and to start the process of validating what has been drawn up to that stage.
In an interview situation, it is important that at some stage to share the map with the interviewee. This can be done when the majority of concepts and links have been captured, towards the end of the interview or at a follow-up meeting. This follow-up meeting is used to correct, and then validate, the map through a process where the interviewee can confirm that the map reflects his or her perspective of the focal problem, and faithfully records the essence of the interview.
In the personal interview instance, the map created is a cognitive map, the personal construct of the interviewee. In a group situation where we are trying to capture the perspectives of several people, the group must be intimately involved in building and subsequent revision of the map. In this case the map is a concept map as distinct from an individual’s cognitive map. The facilitated workshop process recommended for building group maps is explained in detail at Chapter 6.