# Network Analysis for Learners' Concept Maps While Using Mobile Augmented Reality Gaming
###### Abstract
[16] found that an augmented reality mobile gaming approach involving a learning device that detects students' locations boosts students' learning attitudes and achievements. Yet, despite the expansion of these technologies in education, there is a remarkable deficit in our knowledge about what adult learners think and feel about LBMGs. In adult education, quite often, it is more preferable to use qualitative research (with open questions or interviews), because it allows the researcher to delve deeper into this kind of learners' verbal expressions, which can be more revealing of their attitudes and dispositions about the subject they learn. Furthermore, we still lack knowledge about the way adult learners of LBMGs either build on previous experiences or knowledge they may have or create new ones: we do not know how constructivism works in adult education in which MAR games are used [17; 18; 19]. One approach to the methodological problems of treating qualitative data of educational research is to use \"concept maps\" (CM). A concept map can be used to frame a research project, reduce qualitative data, evaluate themes and interconnections in a thesis, and present findings [20]. \"A concept map is a schematic device for representing a set of concept meanings embedded in a framework of propositions\" [21]. The larger, more inclusive concepts are placed at the top of the concepts hierarchy, with linking to sub-concepts. Concept maps are particularly useful to map out concepts from interviews and open questions. From them emerge the main concepts and sub-concepts which are mentioned repeatedly by the learners, and hence, two needs arise: the need to visualize the relationships among concepts and the need to explore quantitatively their occurrence in the participants' responses. One possibility to address both these needs is to use networks, but this avenue has never been explored before. SNA was used by [PERSON] [22] to analyze concepts mentioned by individuals; the data were represented by social networks and analyzed by means of betweenness centrality. While SNA has a long history in humanities and it is also used to evaluate programs [23; 24], they have never been used for content analysis before, either for educational research or not. Thus, from the examination of the literature available so far, the following observations can be made:  
1. Despite the plethora of studies that apply concept maps in education, how adult users assess MAR games (LBMGs in particular) with concept maps has hitherto never been examined or explored. Nor has learning how to play location-based MAR games been examined by using methods of network analysis. 2. Constructivism in education in MAR games has poorly investigated so far. 3. Networks have never been used to explore the interplay among concepts and sub-concepts as they result from content analysis (not only in education but in general). 4. The role of constructivism in education using MAR/LBMGs has been poorly examined. Hence, by focusing on the MAR game Ingress, the present research addressed these research gaps by concentrating on the following research issues as concerns this particular game:  
1. What are the most important views and attitudes that adult learners have toward Ingress? 2. How do these views differ depending on the user's age? 3. What are the advantages of using networks as models for the analysis of adult learners' concept maps in education?