An innovative concept map approach for improving students' learning performance with an instant feedback mechanism

Concept maps have been widely employed for helping students organise their knowledge as well as evaluating their knowledge structures in a wide range of subject matters. Although researchers have recognised concept maps as being an important educational tool, past experiences have also revealed the difficulty of evaluating the correctness of a concept map. It usually takes days or weeks for teachers to manually evaluate the concept maps developed by students; consequently, the students cannot receive timely feedback from the teachers, which not only affects their learning schedules, but also significantly influences the students' learning achievements. In this paper, a computer‐based concept map‐oriented learning strategy with real‐time assessment and feedback is proposed in order to cope with the problems mentioned above. Our approach provides immediate evaluation of concept maps and gives also real‐time feedback to the students. An experiment has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this new strategy in comparison with the conventional computer‐based concept map approach. It is found that our innovative approach can be significantly beneficial to promote learning achievements as well as the learning attitudes of students.     

Supporting the Learning Process with Collaborative Concept Mapping Using Computer-Based Communication Tools and Processes

University students are too often challenged by their limited skills in application, investigation, relational thinking, and communication of ideas. In this study, we have combined 3 tools that potentially can support and foster students’ development in the above mentioned areas through student collaboration, concept mapping, and electronic technologies. The participants in this study were 26 students in two intact classes in learning theories. In groups of 3 to 5 students, they were asked to generate 3 concept maps and accompanying prose over the term on 3 major issues in the field of learning. Through the use of interviews, questionnaires, and student generated concept maps, students reportedly enjoyed concept mapping for its organizational and relational properties but preferred sharing their concept maps and dialoguing with one another in a synchronous mode where immediate feedback and flow of thinking could be maintained when involved in constructing maps. Moreover, they did not like the redundancy offered by both prose and concept map outputs, suggesting that while concept mapping can be an arena for generating and generally structuring ideas, prose can be a means of communicating such ideas in a form that is common to most people. This is particularly important for teachers and students who have difficulty navigating through maps alone.     

Identifying critical junctures in learning in a college course on evolution

The purpose of this research study was to (a) describe how concept mapping can be used as an integral instructional strategy for teaching a college course on evolution, (b) evaluate the utility of incorporating concept mapping in a college course on evolution, (c) determine whether students' concept maps reveal “critical junctures” in learning as the course unfolds, and (d) assess the impact of concept mapping on students' study practices and on students' understanding of course content. Key findings include: (a) Critical junctures in learning evolution can be identified by monitoring the degree of concordance of superordinate concepts appearing on the class set of concept maps submitted after each of the course lectures; (b) students who made concept maps reported spending an average of 37% more study time on this college biology course than on their previous biology courses; and (c) the use of “seed concepts,” “micromapping,” a standard concept map format, and a standard concept map checklist made the strategy feasible for the instructor to implement and for the student to adopt. A concept map performance index formulas was also developed for this research study in order to assess students' overall mapping performance.     

概念图的布局算法研究

概念图是一种有效的知识可视化工具,而概述图的布局是影响其信息传递能力的重要因素,因此布局算法是实现概念图工具的重要技术基础.本文在Sugiyama层次布局算法的基础上,针对概念图的特点和布局要求,提出了一种概念图的布局算法：首先对概念图的概念节点和关系节点进行简化处理,然后应用Sugiyama层次布局算法的第一步（分层）,并对图中的关系节点进行特殊处理,调整分层,最后应用Sugiyama层次布局算法的“交叉减少”和“坐标分配”模块,得出概念图各个节点（包括概念节点、关系节点和虚拟节点）的坐标,最终得出概念图的布局.该算法已通过编程实现,并成功应用于我们自主研发的概念图工具软件中.     

Effectiveness of concept maps in economics: Evidence from Australia and USA

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of concept maps as a teaching and learning tool in university level Principles of Microeconomics courses in Australia and USA. Concept mapping was incorporated in the teaching material in both courses at different countries and, at the end of the semester, the students completed a survey regarding the use, effectiveness, and accessibility of concept maps. It was revealed that USA students valued concept maps relatively less than Australian students. We provide two explanations: First, there may be differences in prior training in economic and/or concept mapping between Australian and USA students. Second, there were significant differences in class structure, which caused the link between collaborative study-groups and the construction of concept maps to not be maintained in the case of USA students.     

CONCEPT MAPPING OF HIGH AND AVERAGE ACHIEVING STUDENTS AND EXPERTS

Concept mapping has been used effectively to represent understanding of afield of knowledge. The maps are highly individualistic and idiosyncratic. Three high‐performing junior college students, three average performing junior college students and two university physics teachers constructed maps using 22 electricity concepts. In this study several previously used and newly developed measures were applied to the maps in an attempt to gain further insight into differences in the quality of understanding of the three groups. It was found that the concept maps constructed by high performing students differed from those of average performing students and closely resembled the concept maps of physics experts, especially when the quality of the links between concepts was taken into account.     

Concept mapping and the cartography of cognition

Since concept maps are designed to find out what the learner knows about a subject and are, in effect, maps of cognition, this article synthesizes relevant facts, concepts, and principles from cartography and applies them to concept mapping. The metaphor of the map and its applicability for representing scientific knowledge are discussed. The context of concept mapping is presented and suggestions for successful application of the technique in the science classroom are offered. Finally, researchers are invited to conduct studies that investigate the graphic representation of scientific knowledge in order to create, evaluate, and improve the graphics and graphic metacognitive tools (such as concept mapping) which are used in science teaching.     

Concept maps for assessing change in learning: a study of undergraduate business students in first-year marketing in China

This paper explains the application of concept mapping to help foster a learning-centred approach. It investigates how concept maps are used to measure the change in learning following a two-week intensive undergraduate Marketing Principles course delivered to 162 Chinese students undertaking a Bachelor of Business Administration programme in China. Using four scoring procedures (breadth of knowledge, relational quality, structural quality and holistic quality), student learning is assessed in terms of prior and new knowledge, as well as improvement in knowledge structure. Concept map scores are correlated with conventional measures of overall student performance. The results provide strong evidence for improvement in students’ ability to externalise new learned concepts resulting from intensive instruction. Incorporating concept maps as a contemporary method of learning in the curriculum potentially enriches student learning, provides a measure of the impact of teaching on students’ learning and adds value to students’ higher education experience.     

Problems and issues in the use of concept maps in science assessment

The search for new, authentic science assessments of what students know and can do is well under way. This has unearthed measures of students' hands-on performance in carrying out science investigations, and has been expanded to discover more or less direct measures of students' knowledge structures. One potential finding is concept mapping, the focus of this review. A concept map is a graph consisting of nodes representing concepts and labeled lines denoting the relation between a pair of nodes. A student's concept map is interpreted as representing important aspects of the organization of concepts in his or her memory (cognitive structure). In this article we characterize a concept map used as an assessment tool as: (a) a task that elicits evidence bearing on a student's knowledge structure in a domain, (b) a format for the student's response, and (c) a scoring system by which the student's concept map can be evaluated accurately and consistently. Based on this definition, multiple concept-mapping techniques were found from the myriad of task, response format, and scoring system variations identified in the literature. Moreover, little attention has been paid to the reliability and validity of these variations. The review led us to arrive at the following conclusions: (a) an integrative working cognitive theory is needed to begin to limit this variation in concept-mapping techniques for assessment purposes; (b) before concept maps are used for assessment and before map scores are reported to teachers, students, the public, and policy makers, research needs to provide reliability and validity information on the effect of different mapping techniques; and (c) research on students' facility in using concept maps, on training techniques, and on the effect on teaching is needed if concept map assessments are to be used in classrooms and in large-scale accountability systems. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Using Concept Maps in Teaching Operations Management Courses

Teaching quantitative subjects such as operations management (OM) can be quite challenging. In this article, we present a novel approach that uses simplified concept maps for teaching OM. This application of concept maps was investigated to determine if it helps students to answer questions and to solve OM problems more effectively. Our study used a controlled experimental design with students divided into two groups, one taught using concept maps and another group taught using traditional techniques. Student learning was measured with pre‐ and posttests consisting of both multiple‐choice and constructed‐response items. The performance of the two groups was compared using an independent samples t‐test and analysis of covariance to control for the covariate “pretest.” The results indicate that use of simplified concept mapping significantly improved student learning of OM course material. We therefore recommend its adoption as an active‐learning pedagogical technique that can lead to positive change in the OM classroom.     

Facilitating knowledge construction in mobile learning contexts: A bi-directional peer-assessment approach

With the advancements in technology networks, mobile learning has been extensively applied in teaching contexts, enabling closer interaction between students and authentic environments. Previous studies have indicated that, when learning in real-world contexts, students need to interact with real learning targets and peers as well as the digital learning content; thus, effective learning strategies or tools are generally required for helping them organize knowledge and for promoting peer interactions. As a result, the present study developed a bi-directional peer-assessment-based concept mapping system, which not only engages students in assessing peers’ concept maps, but also encourages them to evaluate or respond to peers’ ratings and comments. To explore the effectiveness of this learning system, the study conducted an experiment in elementary science classes. A total of 101 fifth graders from four classes were recruited to participate in the study. Two classes were assigned to the experimental group and two to the control group. The experimental group adopted the bi-directional peer-assessment approach, while the control group adopted the conventional peer assessment approach for concept mapping. The results reveal that the bi-directional peer-assessment-based concept mapping system can not only increase students’ learning achievement and the completeness of their concept mapping, but can also enhance their critical thinking tendency and the feedback quality of their peer assessment.     

Mapping for depth and variety: using a “Six W’s” scaffold to facilitate concept mapping for different history concepts with different degrees of freedom

This study examines how 98 students in Taiwan taking a typical high-school history class composed concept maps related to both an everyday concept and an academic-oriented unique concept with various degrees of freedom in concept mapping. In order to reveal the multidimensionality of history concepts, this study provided participants a 6W scaffold with which they were to crisscross their understandings in relation to each individual concept node. The scaffold helped the participants’ concept mapping of academic-oriented unique concepts, but not of everyday concepts, and the effects varied among mappings with different degrees of freedom and among students with different learning capacities.     

The Synthesis Map Is a Multidimensional Educational Tool That Provides Insight into Students’ Mental Models and Promotes Students’ Synthetic Knowledge Generation

Concept mapping was developed as a method of displaying and organizing hierarchical knowledge structures. Using the new, multidimensional presentation software Prezi, we have developed a new teaching technique designed to engage higher-level skills in the cognitive domain. This tool, synthesis mapping, is a natural evolution of concept mapping, which utilizes embedding to layer information within concepts. Prezi’s zooming user interface lets the author of the presentation use both depth as well as distance to show connections between data, ideas, and concepts. Students in the class Biology of Cancer created synthesis maps to illustrate their knowledge of tumorigenesis. Students used multiple organizational schemes to build their maps. We present an analysis of student work, placing special emphasis on organization within student maps and how the organization of knowledge structures in student maps can reveal strengths and weaknesses in student understanding or instruction. We also provide a discussion of best practices for instructors who would like to implement synthesis mapping in their classrooms.     

Concept maps as a heuristic for science curriculum development: Toward improvement in process and product

This article outlines the use of concept maps as a tool for science curriculum development and discusses the changes that occur in the teacher's view of the curriculum with successive revisions of the maps. Although we have used concept mapping in curriculum development with teachers from grades 4–8, we describe in detail the maps created by sixth-grade teachers. We analyzed the maps using three criteria: hierarchical structure, progressive differentiation, and integrative reconciliation. Changes made to the maps during the revision process, including additions and deletions, show increased clarification of both the concepts to be learned and the connections between them. Consecutive map revisions show the development of a cohesive conceptual grade-six science curriculum. The use of concept maps can help science teachers develop science curriculum that is hierarchically arranged, integrated, and conceptually driven.     

Subjectivity in Design Education: The Perception of the City through Personal Maps

Our mental maps related to the cities are limited by our personal perception and fragmented in the process. There are many inner and outer effects that shape our mental maps, and as a result the fragmented whole refers to the total city image in our minds. To represent this image, an experimental study has been conducted with a group of students. They used mapping techniques to design subjective maps. Maps, in general, are objective, and produced by standardised techniques which connote similar meanings for everyone. In contrast, artists and designers use maps as liberating objects of representations. Thus, using mapping techniques, inventing new ways of narration and gaining new understandings towards the city we dwell in are the basic aims of this study. Final designs can be evaluated as tools to question subjectivity in both design and architectural education.     

The concept map as a research tool: Exploring conceptual change in biology

This study examined the concurrent validity of concept maps as vehicles for documenting and exploring conceptual change in biology. Students (N = 91) who enrolled in an elementary science methods course were randomly assigned to one of two treatment groups. Subjects in both groups were administered a multiple-choice/free-response inventory which assayed their knowledge of “Life Zones in the Ocean,” and then were asked to construct a concept map on the same topic. Those in the experimental group subsequently received 45 minutes of computer-assisted instruction on marine life zones, while those in the control (“placebo”) group received an equivalent exposure to an unrelated topic (“Body Defenses”). Upon completing the instructional sequence, subjects were again administered the “Life Zones” inventory and asked to develop a postinstruction concept map on marine life zones. The data analysis employed a split plot factorial design with repeated measures. Differences among treatment groups were documented by analysis of variance and chi-square procedures. Subjects in the experimental group showed evidence of significant and substantial changes in the complexity and prepositional structure of the knowledge base, as revealed in concept maps. No such changes were found in the control group. Results suggest that concept mapping offers a valid and potentially useful technique for documenting and exploring conceptual change in biology.     

Psychometric and edumetric validity of dimensions of geomorphological knowledge which are tapped by concept mapping

The validity of several dimensions of knowledge which were inferred from concept maps was assessed for its psychometric and edumetric aspects. Data were collected from 14 students who enrolled in the university first-year introductory geomorphology course and in its prerequisite introductory geology course. They took an objective geomorphology test, the tree construction task, and the Standardized Concept Structuring Analysis Technique (SConSAT) version of concept mapping. Comparisons among these dimensions of knowledge before and after the geomorphology course yielded convergent evidence. For the psychometric perspective, the SConSAT version of concept mapping and tree construction had similar knowledge structure representations, and the cognitive map correctness was moderately positively correlated with the objective test but not with the geomorphology course test. For the edumetric perspective, the majority of the dimensions of knowledge structures from the SConSAT showed large improvements following the geomorphology course. This evidence shows that the knowledge structure dimensions have moderate to good construct validity which warrant their widespread use for evaluating learning outcomes in both experimental and classroom settings. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 34: 925–947, 1997.     

Developing a measure of wealth for primary student families in a developing country: Comparison of two methods of psychometric calibration

This article compares the invariance properties of two methods of psychometric instrument calibration for the development of a measure of wealth among families of Grade 5 pupils in five provinces in Vietnam. The measure is based on self-reported lists of possessions in the home. Its stability has been measured over two time periods. The concept of fundamental measurement, and the properties of construct and measurement invariance have been outlined. Item response modelling (IRM) and confirmatory factor modelling (CFM) as comparative methodologies, and the processes used for evaluating these, have been discussed. Each procedure was used to calibrate a 23-item instrument with data collected from a probability sample of Grade 5 pupils in a total of 60 schools. The two procedures were compared on the basis of their capacity to provide evidence of construct and measurement invariance, stability of parameter estimates, bias for or against sub samples, and the simplicity of the procedures and their interpretive powers. Both provided convincing evidence of construct invariance, but only the Rasch procedure was able to provide firm evidence of measurement invariance, parameter stability and a lack of bias across samples.