Implicit Knowledge in Concept Maps and Their Revealing by Spatial Analysis of Hand-drawn Maps

Concept maps represent a rich structure to store and picture information or knowledge in form of concept-to-concept relations. There are several methods proposed for concept map analysis, based usually on concept and relation comparison, topological analysis of the map and others. One of the traditional applications of concept maps is the evaluation of the student’s knowledge, enabling to identify not only well understood knowledge, but also to reveal misunderstanding of some parts of the course topic. One of the not yet fully examined characteristics of hand-drawn concept maps seems to be the spatial layout of the map and its connection with the level of understanding to the diagrammatized topic. Possible relationship between the concept-to-concept distances and the level of subjective understanding of the subject domain will be presented as a new sight to hand-drawn concept maps analysis.