Abstract
Conceptual mapping tools have been used more and more for various educational purposes in recent years by academicians and educators. In addition, developments of technology that include conceptual mapping have a significant influence on education sustainability. Nevertheless, students’ understanding and motivation in using conceptual mapping in the context of education sustainability has rarely been assessed. Thus, this study could be useful for developing and testing theories related to using conceptual mapping, as well as for practitioners who use conceptual mapping in education sustainability. Besides being used as a method of assessment, these mapping tools are used to improve the students’ critical and analytical thinking skills and to facilitate the demonstration of relationships among concepts. Instead of using written or verbal descriptions, these tools utilise various diagrammatic relationships. The use of pictures, diagrams and visual illustrations are believed to facilitate the understanding of complex topics more readily. Therefore, this research aims to develop a new model that employs conceptual mapping for improving the motivation and achievements of students. A survey was distributed to 247 participants who are using conceptual mapping tools for learning, and the data were quantitatively analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM-Amos). The results of this study show that conceptual mapping can be used to increase students’ understanding and motivation to improve their academic achievements.
Highlights
Even though the use of visual representation of information is not a novel concept, their full benefits in education have only been realized recently
The results of the fifth hypothesis (β = 0.034, t = 0.494, p < 0.001) demonstrate that assessment and evaluation were negatively influenced by the use of conceptual mapping
The factors that this paper considered to influence the use of conceptual mapping are conceptual mapping use (CM), attitude towards conceptual mapping (AT), behavioural intention to use conceptual mapping (BIU), collaborative conceptual mapping (CO), perceived usefulness of conceptual mapping (PU), students’ interaction while using conceptual mapping (SI), assessment and evaluation using conceptual mapping (AE), students’ motivation to use conceptual mapping (SM), students’ critical thinking skills while using conceptual mapping (ST) and students’ academic achievements while using conceptual mapping (SA)
Summary
Even though the use of visual representation of information is not a novel concept, their full benefits in education have only been realized recently. Various mapping tools that are used for creating data visualization and establishing connection between concepts have emerged in the market in the last decade. These tools may be widely known as conceptual mapping, mind mapping or argument mapping. Even though the terms conceptual mapping and mind mapping are sometimes used interchangeably [5,6], it is worth noting that conceptual mapping is more structured, precise and formal. It is less graphic as it uses hierarchical structures contrary to mind mapping which uses diagrams and pictures.
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