Concept Mapping as a Tool to Develop and Measure Students’ Understanding in Science

Abstract

Concept maps measured a student's understanding of the complexity of concepts, and interrelationships. Novak and Gowin (1984) claimed that the continuous use of concept maps increased the complexity and interconnectedness of students' understanding of relationships between concepts in a particular science domain. This study has two purposes; the first one was to test this claim and examine how the repeated use of concept maps affected the complexity and interconnectedness of concepts independent of science subjects in elementary school, the second one was to compare the sensitivity of the Ruiz-Primo et al. (1997), and the Novak and Gowin (1984) grading systems for concept maps. The sample group consisted of 23 students including 14 male and 9 female students. We employed paired sample t-tests to answer the research questions, and found that the scores obtained for the fifth science unit was significantly different from the first one. Also, Novak and Gowin's (1984) scoring system was better than Ruiz-Primo et al. (1997) to evaluate complexity in students' thinking except for one of the units. We conclude that concept maps have the potential to measure change in complexity and interconnectivity of concept maps. Furthermore, repeated use of concept maps has the potential to increase the complexity and interconnectedness of student concept maps, and therefore improve their understanding of science independent of science content.

Concept Maps as Assessments of Expertise: Understanding of the Complexity and Interrelationships of Concepts in Science

“…Although concept maps have been used in a variety of ways in STEM education, to date, we have found no evidence of their use as a method for identifying talent in STEM as an alternative to the usual methods of assessing students' levels of expertise or levels of development of expertise (Sternberg, 1999a). However, given their usefulness in assessing the ways people understand, organize, and connect their knowledge about a particular domain or subject, they are excellent ways to measure the level of expertise of students and determine their progress from novices to experts in a domain (Erdimez et al, 2017;Tan et al, 2017;Zimmerman et al, 2011). Those who demonstrate a high level of expertise for their ages and grade levels have a higher probability of continuing to develop this expertise because they (a) are more sensitive to patterns of information; (b) organize, represent, and interpret information efficiently; (c) integrate new and existing information that is varied and complex; and (c) reason more effectively in their domains of expertise.…”

“…In this new approach, the research team has drawn upon research on expertise (Bransford et al, 2000;Chi et al, 1981;Dogusoy-Taylan & Cagiltay, 2014;Glaser & Chi, 1988;Sternberg, 1999aSternberg, , 2005, research and practice in the use of concept maps in science education (Asan, 2007;BouJaoude & Attieh, 2008;_ Ingec¸, 2009;Lopez et al, 2011;Rice et al, 1998;Ruiz-Primo, 2004;Ruiz-Primo et al, 2001), and our own previous experiences with the use of concept maps to evaluate students' deep understanding of concepts and their interrelationships (Erdimez et al, 2017;Tan et al, 2017;Zimmerman et al, 2011). Using Sternberg's (1999a) concept of intelligence as developing expertise, the research team chose concept maps as a way to identify students' levels of developing expertise, which included their ability to identify relationships among concepts, map the hierarchical relationships between and among concepts, and generate "new or novel ideas or associations between existing concepts" (Dino, 2017, p. 24), thereby demonstrating their domain-relevant knowledge and skills and creativity-relevant processes needed for exceptional productivity and performance in the two STEM areas of life and physical science.…”

“…• To determine the impact of the continuous use of concept maps on the complexity and interconnectedness of students' understanding of relationships among concepts in a particular science domain (Maker et al, 2019;Novak & Gowin, 1984;Tan et al, 2017).…”

Identifying Exceptional Talent in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics: Increasing Diversity and Assessing Creative Problem-Solving

“…The words on the lines explain the relationship between two concepts, and the hierarchies identified by students show how they have organized the concepts. This approach to assessment of domain-specific knowledge has several advantages: (a) assessing the students' levels of development of expertise in a domain, (b) having no ceiling effect, (c) assessing higher levels of thinking rather than memory and comprehension (Austin & Shore, 1993;Erdimez et al, 2017;İngeç, 2009;Vanides et al, 2005), and (d) offering an alternative to the usual multiplechoice standardized tests or grades for assessing domain-specific ability and understanding Tan et al, 2017;Zimmerman et al, 2011).…”

Empirical study on the effects of social network–supported group concept mapping

“…The scoring results can reveal how students organize concepts at different level of hierarchy, how many concepts students can demonstrate in a map of the domain, how students identify the relationships among concepts, and how many examples students can include to present their ideas (Maker & Zimmerman, 2020). Researchers have found that the scoring criteria (Novak et al, 1984) is convenient for quick scoring (Tan et al, 2017). Therefore, due to the research scale in the experiment, we adopted the scoring criteria of concept map components to match the purpose appropriately.…”