Assessing hypermedia navigation through Pathfinder: Prospects and limitations

In response to the need for more dynamic forms of assessment, our primary aim was to evaluate the validity of Pathfinder for representing and comparing individuals' navigation through a computer-based hypermedia environment. Our secondary aim was to evaluate the validity of Pathfinder for generating an empirically-derived path that represents a set of individual navigational paths. Participants were divided into two groups: a Test-based group and a Problem-based group. Based on prior research, we assumed that these groups would differ with respect to navigation. Pathfinder-generated networks and the related C-measure were used to test the validity of Pathfinder for capturing differences between these groups. The results supported our hypothesis that Pathfinder would be able to distinguish between the two groups. Furthermore, it was shown that, with some modification, Pathfinder was able to generate an empirically-derived network that represented the paths of the individuals in the group from which it was derived.