Case study: Assessing the impact of concept mapping during an exam review on exam performance in a large-enrollment human physiology course

Abstract

A typical college-level human physiology course surveys a breadth of physiological topics. Students are expected to demonstrate an understanding of organ system functions from the molecular to the organismal scale as well as an understanding of how interactions between organ systems produce integrated functions. Concept maps are learning tools that help students make connections between seemingly disparate concepts, like physiological processes occurring at different scales and interactions between different organ systems. The purpose of this study was to compare exam scores of students who attended a review session with concept mapping to those who attended a review session without concept mapping, as well as to assess the perceived exam preparedness of students who attended an exam review and those who did not attend an exam review. We hypothesized that the addition of concept mapping during an exam review session would improve average student exam scores and that students who attended a review session would report that they were better prepared for the exam.The concept map intervention was implemented as part of each exam review session for two in-person offerings of a large enrollment intermediate level human physiology course (n=747 students) in 2021–22 at a large public research university. Control exam performance data was collected in the same course without the concept map intervention as part of the exam review sessions for two in-person offerings (n=807 students) during 2017-18. The intervention groups’ exam review sessions consisted of 30 minutes of concept mapping followed by 20 minutes of a student question and answer session. The control groups’ exam review sessions consisted of 50 minutes of a student question and answer session. After each exam, students were asked to report the grade they expected to earn on the exam (A, B, C, D or F) as a measure of their level of exam preparedness. A student’s t-test was used to determine significant differences between exam scores of students in the intervention and control group. Data are presented as mean exam score (%)±SD.Overall exam scores in the control group (80.4±11.7) were significantly higher than the experimental group (78.75±11.8, p=0.007). Of the students who participated in the survey, 2,228 participated in the exam review and 543 did not. Perceived exam preparedness are as follows for groups that attended the exam review (expecting A:25%, B:55%, C:18%, D:2%, F:0%) and those who did not attend (expecting A:20%, B:49%, C:23%, D:4%, F:2%).The overall exam scores from the control group were higher than the experimental group. This suggests that adding concept maps to the review session did not improve exam scores. There may be confounding factors affecting exam scores (ex: transitioning to an in-person setting after the global pandemic). More research needs to be done to understand the impact of including concept map exercises in exam review sessions on student exam performance. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.