EFFECTIVENESS OF CONCEPT MAPPING STRATEGY ON ACHIEVEMENT IN SCIENCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

In the recent two decays, concept maps have been widely used both to promote and to measure meaningful learning in various disciplines, especially in science teaching (Kinchin 2000a; Novak & Gowin 1984). It has also been applied in a range of contexts such as teacher education (Trent et al. 1998) and evaluation of students’ misconceptions (Bartels 1995) or conceptual change (Kinchin 2000b; Trent et al. 1998; Wallace & Mintzes 1990; Trowbridge & Wandersee 1994). The use of concept maps as an assessment tool of academic achievement is an important recent application (Aidman & Egan 1998; Parkes et al. 2000; Wilson 1994), and will form the focus of the present study in the context of an introductory statistics course for the education degree students in a Finnish university. More specifically, this study aims at examining how the students’ concept map working supports their learning process and how it is related in their learning outcomes. In addition, results of the study will bring valuable knowledge, the viewpoint which has been emphasized in previous studies (Slotte & Lonka 1999); in what circumstances and what way concept mapping is truly effective to use as a tool for support students representation of statistical knowledge and what methodological limitations and improvements we have to take account in the future concept map research settings.