Concept Mapping as an Alternative Approach for the Analysis of Open-Ended Survey Responses

This article presents concept mapping as an alternative method to existing code-based and word-based text analysis techniques for one type of qualitative text data—open-ended survey questions. It is argued that the concept mapping method offers a unique blending of the strengths of these approaches while minimizing some of their weaknesses. This method appears to be especially well suited for the type of text generated by open-ended questions as well for organizational research questions that are exploratory in nature, aimed at scale or interview question development, and/or developing conceptual coding schemes. A detailed example of concept mapping on open-ended survey data is presented. Reliability and validity issues associated with concept mapping are also discussed.