Concept Mapping As An Instructional And Assessment Method To Facilitate Cognition Of Students

A concept map is defined as a two-dimensional hierarchical representation of concepts which indicates the relationship between the selected concepts.Concept maps aided conceptual organization and enabled students to perceive and understand knowledge structures as they pertain to a given body of knowledge.Studies of concept mapping in design,instruction and assessment are available in abundance in west countries,but those dealing with the teacher used concept maps as cognitive aids for guiding graph comprehension in lectures,pre-prepared concept maps that organize knowledge in a non-linear fashion for a long time are few.Specifically,studies of concept mapping in depth are few in china.So the study of concept mapping in depth is important from the point of view of educational psychology in our country.The paper consists of six sections:The first section presented perspectives on concept mapping and its benefits to students in learning of subjects.Aspects of concept mapping addressed in this review include:(1) its structure;(2) applications(indicating uses in curriculum development, instruction,and evaluation);(3) base upon epistemological,psychological and educational theories.The second section is about a meta-analysis of concept mapping studies.This meta-analysis reviews experimental studies in which students learned by constructing, modifying,or viewing concept mapping.The third section includes two experiments.Experiment 1 conducted an experiment,the teacher used concept maps as cognitive aids for guiding graph comprehension,pre-prepared concept maps were integrated into traditional instructional methods;the learners did not create concept maps.An experimental group of eighth graders and a control group completed a year on the same science subjects.Experiment two conducted another experiment,examined the effects of concept mapping on the science achievement.The effect of individual differences in learners,such as prior knowledge,cognitive styles and sex was investigated.The subjects were 266 ninth-grade students,assigned participants to groups by using a pretest and sex to control for preexisting differences among groups.In the first semester,in one experimental class,the teacher used concept maps as cognitive aids for guiding graph comprehension;in the meantime,the students were required to create their concept maps.But in another experimental class,only the teacher plotted concepts.In the traditional teaching approach,the teacher used the lecture method in sequencing the instructional activities from available books.The treatment and control group used the same content materials.In the second semester,only the teacher plotted concepts in all experimental classes.Developed questionnaires asked whether the concept maps were useful and also allowed for comments.The fourth section conducted three experiments.Experiment 1 investigated differences in educational masters and novice college students' concept maps about physics.Experiment two reported of the results of a fill-in-the-concept map of physics test.Experiment three examined the use of concept maps to review and measure graduate students' understanding of fundamental knowledge in educational statistics.The fifth section is the general discussion,the author pointed out the deficiency of concept mapping.The paper restated concept mapping as cognitive tools to facilitate cognition and assess students' knowledge structure.The sixth section is appendix.The conclusion includes:1.Concept mapping is based on epistemological,psychological and educational theories.The scoring methods proposed by Novak are irrational according to epistemological theories and cognitive psychology.Concept map structure should be various based upon cognitive theories.2.This meta-analysis reviews experimental studies in which students learned by constructing,modifying,or viewing concept mapping.Across several instructional conditions,settings,and methodological features,the use of concept maps was associated with increased knowledge retention and positive attitude.3.The experiments demonstrated the usefulness of concept maps as cognitive aids for guiding graph comprehension.The experimental students significantly out-perform the control students on complex science problems.The results favored the teacher plotting concepts but not the students.Some benefits were observed for learners with low prior knowledge.Participants who were classified as field independent scored significantly higher than those classified as field dependent on science exams,but concept mapping reduced these differences.The results favored boys creating concept maps not girls.A significant majority of the students reported that pre-prepared concept maps were useful to their learning.The experimental teacher and students created a positive reaction to concept mapping.4.Concept mapping revealed the differences in knowledge structure between experts(e.g.educational masters) and novices(e.g.college students).The fill-in-the-concept map of physics test scores could predict other scores on conventional testing items.Valuable qualitative information can be gained from an investigation of graduate students' concept maps.