Abstract
The contribution deals with methodological issues connected with the evaluation of cartographic materials. A new research design for map evaluation comes from an extensive cooperation between cartographers and psychologists. Contrary to strictly quantitative approaches, we propose a mixed research design, combining the quantitative and qualitative methods, because also the qualitative exploration of the corresponding cognitive strategies is in some cases necessary for an in-depth interpretation of the results. Proposed research design is demonstrated by a sample experiment concerning comparison and evaluation of suitability of two different cartographic approaches to avalanche hazard visualization. The quantitative analysis enables to detect potential differences in the compared visualization methods in the sense of their effectiveness and efficiency, and the qualitative analysis of the eye-movement data might improve our understanding of the ways different cognitive strategies are applied. The experiment was carried on the newly developed interactive assessment tool MUTEP, which substantially increases the reliability of experiments in cognitive cartography. MUTEP enables easy data collection and effective evaluation of the results which could be subsequently analyzed.
Zusammenfassung
Der Beitrag behandelt methodologische Aspekte bei der Evaluierung kartographischen Materials. Basierend auf der engen Zusammenarbeit von Kartographen und Psychologen ist ein neuer Forschungsansatz zur Kartenevaluierung entwickelt worden. Im Gegensatz zu rein quantitativen Ansätzen wird hier ein Forschungsansatz vorgeschlagen, der qualitative und quantitative Methoden vereint, da für eine vertiefte Interpretation der Ergebnisse in einigen Fällen eine qualitative Untersuchung der entsprechenden kognitiven Strategien notwendig ist. Der vorgeschlagene Forschungsansatz wird beispielhaft anhand einer Untersuchung demonstriert, bei der zwei kartographische Ansätze zur Visualisierung des Lawinenrisikos verglichen werden. Die quantitative Analyse deckt dabei potentielle Unterschiede der Visualisierungsmethoden im Hinblick auf ihre Tauglichkeit und Effizienz auf, während die qualitative Analyse der Blickbewegungsdaten unser Verständnis über die verschiedenen angewandten kognitiven Strategien erweitern kann. Die Untersuchung wurde mit Hilfe des neu entwickelten interaktiven Bewertungstools MUTEP durchgeführt, das die Zuverlässigkeit von Experimenten zur kognitiven Kartographie beträchtlich erhöht. MUTEP erleichtert die Datensammlung sowie die effektive Auswertung der Ergebnisse.
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Štěrba, Z., Šašinka, Č., Stachoň, Z. et al. Mixed Research Design in Cartography: A Combination of Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. j. Cartogr. Geogr. inf. 64, 262–269 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03544186
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03544186