Concept Mapping: A Dynamic, Individualized and Qualitative Method for Eliciting Meaning.

The purpose of this theoretical article is to explore the use of concept mapping as a qualitative research method that is represented as a form of multimodal communication. This framework strives to move mapping beyond quantitative analysis by inserting art and humanness into the process. This proposed framework provides a means to highlight the ways in which people learn, understand, and interpret the world around them. Three categories for understanding have been identified by the authors to help individuals create, interpret, and understand qualitative concept maps. These categories include the following: Voice: Tri-directional Voice and Mutual Absorption; Detail in the Parts & Recognition of the Whole: Uniqueness, Aesthetic Distance and Emplacement; and Sensory Experience: Intellectual + Emotional Investment and Humanness. Each of these categories is interconnected, and informs each other in a dialectical way, therefore creating a piece of visual data with which the participant, researcher and audience can interact.