Concept Mapping Exercises Research Articles

Imagining and implementing healthy city interventions: Combined results from parallel concept mapping exercises in Montreal with community members and stakeholders.

Built environment interventions provide structural solutions to complex urban challenges. Though community voices are part of municipal decision-making, planners and public health professionals need tools to better integrate their perspectives for desired changes (what) when implementing built environment interventions (how). We present two simultaneous concept mapping exercises conducted in Montréal, Canada, to facilitate the consideration of these dimensions. Community members were prompted about neighbourhood changes that could improve their quality of life; stakeholders were prompted about factors that contribute to successful implementation of interventions. Through each exercise, items were generated, grouped, and rated on importance and feasibility. Concept maps were produced using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis. The clusters identified by community members and stakeholders were combined into a Community × Stakeholder Matrix, which supported discussions on interventions with the research's Advisory Committee. Thirty-two community members generated 41 responses, which resulted in 6 clusters: (1) strengthen public transportation, (2) reduce space dedicated to cars, (3) foster local social connections, (4) develop quality cycling infrastructure, (5) improve pedestrian accessibility, and (6) green the city. Thirty-seven stakeholders generated 40 items, which resulted in 5 clusters: (1) collaboration with stakeholders and citizens, (2) planning and evaluation, (3) common vision for the future, (4) regulatory framework and funding, and (5) context-informed approach. Capturing the collective vision of our urban environments and the processes underlying change through concept mapping can lead to more successful changes. We propose combining understandings of the what and how into a matrix to support evaluation and strategic planning of interventions and better integrate community voices into operational planning.

Improving Students’ Knowledge and Engagement in Immunology Course Using Video-Based Learning and Concept Mapping in Modified E-tivities

E-tivities were implemented in the online class of Immunology at the Department of Pharmacy UII using video-based learning (VBL) and concept mapping exercises to enhance student motivation and knowledge. The class measurement method was used by comparing the previous academic year's lecture evaluation and outcomes (the 2021 semester without video and concept mapping) and the 2022 semester (with E-tivities using VBL and concept mapping). According to the evaluation results, the combination of learning methods with learning video and concept mapping increased the student's interest and enthusiasm for learning. Furthermore, the student's mastery of the material increased from 8% to 41%, resulting in an increase in the student's final grade. The combination of video-based learning and concept mapping increased student motivation and knowledge

Citizens defining citizenship: A model grounded in lived experience and its implications for research, policy and practice.

Citizenship is gaining currency in health and social care internationally as a way of making sense of the lived experiences of people with major life disruptions who face exclusion, marginalisation and discrimination, but the concept is often contested, poorly defined and understood. This paper charts the development of an empirical model of citizenship within Scotland, UK. A mixed-method, community-based participatory research approach using 10 focus groups (n=77), concept-mapping exercises (n=45) and statement clarity and relevant ratings (n=242) was used to develop a model of citizenship that is grounded in the lived experience of participants, which is absent from current conceptualisations of citizenship. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis revealed five core domains emerging from our work: 'building relationships', 'autonomy and acceptance', 'access to services and supports', 'shared values and social roles' and 'civic rights and responsibilities' representing the personal meanings of citizenship for participants. We argue that the value of this model is that it is draws upon the personal understandings and experiences of participants who emphasised the 'banal ordinariness' of its core elements. We suggest that the model makes an original contribution by clearly illustrating the practical applicability of citizenship as a concept; thus, enhancing existing theories of citizenship. Our model highlights the interplay between the relational and structural aspects of citizenship and acknowledges the barriers that marginalised groups face in claiming their citizenship rights. It offers a call to action for policy makers and practitioners to set goals that contribute to the social inclusion of those who have experienced major life disruptions.

Successes and failures of built environment interventions: Using concept mapping to assess stakeholder perspectives in four Canadian cities.

Healthy communities can be supported through built environment interventions that redesign cities for improved health outcomes. Understanding the context of these interventions is critical for assessing how an intervention impacts population health; such context is often poorly documented. This study uses concept mapping to capture stakeholders' perspectives on the factors that influence the success and failure of built environment interventions across cities. The INTErventions, Research, and Action in Cities Team (INTERACT) research program undertook concept mapping exercises related to interventions in four Canadian cities: public bike share program (Vancouver); a cycling network (Victoria); a bus rapid transit program (Saskatoon); and interventions related to the Montreal Sustainability Plan (Montreal). Concept mapping synthesised stakeholder perceptions and Go zones were used to prioritise factors based on importance and feasibility. Resulting themes were integrated into implementation science frameworks. Across four cities, 95 stakeholders participated. An average of 38 factors were identified in each city, resulting in 5 emerging clusters in Victoria and Montreal and 6 clusters in Vancouver and Saskatoon. Clusters covered domains of economic and political context, intervention planning, equity considerations, user experience, and stakeholder engagement. Common across all cities was the importance of stakeholder engagement. Concerns for citizen safety were prominent in Victoria, Vancouver, and Saskatoon. Interventions in Saskatoon and Vancouver were related to programs, and reliability of service and ease of use emerged. Go zones highlighted 2-5 items in each city, which can inform priority actions. Our study provides stakeholders' collective thinking on the contextual factors that influence the success and failure of built environment interventions. Organising context within an implementation science framework can provide a common language to synthesise stakeholder perspectives across settings. Go zone items can inform city-specific priority actions to support a common vision around implementing built environment interventions in pursuit of designing equitable and healthy cities.

'It depends': Characterizing speech and language therapy for preschool children with developmental speech and language disorders.

BackgroundSeveral studies have suggested that practitioners hold speech and language therapy (SLT) practice as tacit and consequently it is difficult for the therapist to describe. The current study uses a range of knowledge elicitation (KE) approaches, a technique not used before in SLT, as a way of accessing this tacit knowledge. There is currently no agreed framework that establishes key factors underpinning practice for preschool children with speech and language disorders. This paper attempts to address that gap.AimsTo develop a framework of SLTs’ practice when working with preschool children with developmental speech and language disorders (DS&LD).Methods & ProceduresA mixed‐methods approach was adopted for this study. Data were collected iteratively, from 245 SLTs with experience of working with preschool children with DS&LD across sites in England, by means of focus groups and national events. There were three stages of data collection: local sites, specific‐interest groups and two national events. KE techniques were used to gather data, with initial data being collected in local site focus groups. Findings from groups were taken to subsequent larger groups where a combination of concept mapping, teach‐back and sorting exercises generated a more detailed description of practice, using discussion of consensus and disagreement to stimulate further exploration and definition and provide validatory evidence.Outcomes & ResultsThis paper provides a high‐level framework of therapy for preschool children with DS&LD that makes practice explicit in this area. The framework proposes that therapists’ aims for this group of children fall into three categories: addressing children's areas of impairment and skills; achieving functionally meaningful skills and carryover; and supporting adults to provide a supportive communication environment. The exact configuration is shaped by the child's context and needs.Conclusions & ImplicationsThe framework highlights themes that are well researched in the literature (e.g., speech) and others that have been little studied (e.g., adult understanding), indicating a disconnect between research evidence and practice. The research also highlights the complex nature of interventions for preschool children with DS&LD and the importance therapists attribute to tailoring therapy to individual needs. The framework provides a scaffold upon which SLTs can focus their clinical practice and encourages the profession to understand and explore better the gaps between research evidence and clinical practice for preschool children with DS&LD.

Design for the Soul of the Community

The X State University Community Playground Project (XSUCPP) employs community-based design techniques in which college students in biological engineering work with local constituents, especially children, to design and build playgrounds that reflect the unique aspects of the community which the playground will serve. In developing a community-based design process, members of XSUCPP realized that there is a dearth of literature in this area. Therefore, members sought to develop an initial set of community-based design principles and best practices that engineering practitioners could use in their own community-based design endeavors. The team completed brainstorming and concept mapping exercises using a combination of individual and group techniques to create an initial set of community-based design principles, presented here. The XSUCPP members believe that each of these principles supports the overall goal of community-based design: to express “the Soul of the Community” through co-created artifacts.

Student Approach to Learning in a Bachelor Level Cadaver Dissection Course

The objective of this study was to determine how students' approach to learning changes through a semester‐long cadaver dissection course and if in‐class and online integrative drawing and concept‐mapping exercises can shift student approach to learning and diversity of study methods employed. Study participants were 67 fourth‐year bachelor students from two cohorts of a semester‐long anatomy course with lecture and cadaver dissection. At the beginning and end of the course students completed the revised two‐factor Study Process Questionnaire (Biggs, British Journal of Educational Psychology, 2001, 71, 133–149) to assess deep and surface motivation and strategies in their approach to learning. At the same time students responded to open‐ended questions regarding study methods. Course exercises included demonstrations of concept mapping, time in lecture for group work, and online forums where students posted diagrams responding to prompts asking students to integrate sympathetic and parasympathetic innervation, or the muscles, innervations, and secretions within the digestive system. Some individual students showed major shifts in their approach to learning however there was not a significant overall trend toward either deep or surface learning over the course and no influence of participation in the class exercises on approach to learning. There was a modest positive correlation between deep approach to learning at the end of the course and overall performance (r=0.30, p<0.05). In conclusion, the class exercises did not measurably alter student approach to learning, but open‐ended questions indicated that students enjoyed the integrative exercises and felt the skills they learned were applicable in other courses. This perceived value of the exercises could be more generally attributed to an increased awareness of the learning process.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Examining Science Teachers’ Argumentation in a Teacher Workshop on Earthquake Engineering

The purpose of this study was to examine changes in the quality of science teachers’ argumentation as a result of their engagement in a teacher workshop on earthquake engineering emphasizing distributed learning approaches, which included concept mapping, collaborative game playing, and group lesson planning. The participants were ten high school science teachers from US high schools who elected to attend the workshop. To begin and end the teacher workshop, teachers in small groups engaged in concept mapping exercises with other teachers. Researchers audio-recorded individual teachers’ argumentative statements about the inclusion of earthquake engineering concepts in their concept maps, which were then analyzed to reveal the quality of teachers’ argumentation. Toulmin’s argumentation model formed the framework for designing a classification schema to analyze the quality of participants’ argumentative statements. While the analysis of differences in pre- and post-workshop concept mapping exercises revealed that the number of argumentative statements did not change significantly, the quality of participants’ argumentation did increase significantly. As these differences occurred concurrently with distributed learning approaches used throughout the workshop, these results provide evidence to support distributed learning approaches in professional development workshop activities to increase the quality of science teachers’ argumentation. Additionally, these results support the use of concept mapping as a cognitive scaffold to organize participants’ knowledge, facilitate the presentation of argumentation, and as a research tool for providing evidence of teachers’ argumentation skills.

Qualities, Activities and Modes of Operation of Well-Integrated New York City School Gardens

Objective: New York City School Gardens are highly varied in their characteristics, activities, and how they operate within a school. This study aimed to describe the qualities of well-integrated school gardens. That is, those who have a physically maintained garden that students visit regularly and has become a sustained part of the school culture. Design, Setting and Participants: School gardeners from 21 schools in New York City participated in a survey, observation(s), a semi-structured interview, and a concept mapping exercise during the 2013-2014 school year. Photographs were taken of gardens and additional documents were collected for analysis (when available). OutcomeMeasures andAnalysis:Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the survey and qualitative techniques, including pattern matching, explanation building, and cross-case synthesis were used to analyze the qualitative data. Finally, multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis was used to assess and synthesize data collected from the concept mapping exercises. Results: A rich description, supplemented with images, of each school gardening program was constructed that describe each schools unique coupling of School Garden Integration Framework (SGIF) components to meet their special needs and sustain the garden (e.g. a school with a greenhouse-enclosed rooftop hydrofarm classroom operationalized the SGIF very differently than a school with outdoor raised beds). Taken together these data illustrate the variation in how the SGIF can be used to overcome barriers and effectively integrate a school garden. Conclusions and Implications: Lessons learned from each school may be helpful for other urban school gardeners and can be used to develop guiding principles and policies for schools with similar gardening needs or requirements. Funding: None.

Toward ecological literacy: A permaculture approach to junior secondary science

Environmental, economic, and social trends suggest the need for more sustainable ways of thinking and patterns of behaviour. Such a shift would require humanity to function at high levels of ecological literacy, which relies on a certain amount of scientific literacy. However, troubling evidence indicates an international pattern of student disengagement with science at the secondary level. Evidence also suggests that it is difficult to integrate environmental or sustainability education at this level, both within New Zealand and elsewhere. This research was aimed at examining the use of a novel approach, using permaculture, in junior secondary science (Years 9 and 10) to enhance students’ ecological and scientific literacy as well as their attitudes toward studying science in school. Permaculture is an ecological design system based on science and ethics. A permaculture approach to science education involves eco-design thinking as well as the use of local permaculture properties and practitioners and the science behind common permaculture practices. The approach is also meant to be relevant and engaging and to promote systems thinking. This study involved the design and delivery of an intervention based on permaculture principles to one Year 10 science class in New Zealand. Research took the form of a naturalistic, interpretive, mixed methods case study, which included the use of questionnaires, interviews and observations. Data collection focused on the impacts of a permaculture approach on the teaching and learning of science, on students’ ecological literacy, and on students’ attitudes toward learning science in school. Pre- and post-intervention questionnaires probed students’ opinions on the environment, science and learning science in school, and tested their sustainable thinking and systems thinking with concept mapping and SOLO Taxonomy exercises. Classroom observations took place over the course of 12 weeks, on average three days per week, totalling 31 days. Before and after some classroom visits I had informal conversations with the teacher, along with three formal interviews before, during and after the intervention. Three focus groups of students were interviewed immediately following the intervention. Findings show that a permaculture approach to junior secondary science can impact positively on students’ understanding of science and sustainability, and may impact on their attitudes toward studying science in school. It also appeared to impact positively on the science teacher’s attitude toward including sustainability in his teaching practice, and on his own sustainability learning. Regarding both students and teachers, a permaculture approach appears to have been effective to cultivate attitudes and trellis learning. The teacher and the students responded favourably to many aspects of the intervention, including the overall focus on the environment, the field trips, and some classroom learning activities. The teacher reported appreciating the way the intervention contextualized science with real world examples. Most students reported appreciating the experiential aspects of the intervention, as well as the relevance that a permaculture approach to science education provided. Findings indicate that advances in ecological and scientific literacy varied among students. Some students appeared to improve their use of science and sustainability vocabulary; to become more aware of select socio-scientific issues; and, to better recognise scientific and ecological limits and possibilities. Some students also showed advances in sustainable thinking and systems thinking. Although many students expressed concern about issues such as pollution, wildlife, and genetic engineering—and prioritized protecting the environment over making money—there appeared to be a disconnect between these feelings and a sense of personal responsibility to act. Most students reported enjoying learning science with a focus on the environment, with one cohort indicating much greater enjoyment of the permaculture approach than their usual level of enjoyment of learning science in school. Trends in environmental degradation, population growth, energy inflation, and economic stagnation—especially pronounced since the beginning of this inquiry in 2008—indicate that the world of the future will require ecologically literate citizens who can design and create truly sustainable systems for all human endeavours. Cultivating such citizens and trellising their science and sustainability learning has implications for science education. This thesis identifies an innovative approach for junior secondary science in New Zealand that provides a way towards a more sustainable future.

Toward Ecological Literacy: A Permaculture Approach to Junior Secondary Science

AbstractEnvironmental, economic, and social trends suggest the need for more sustainable ways of thinking and patterns of behaviour. Such a shift would require humanity to function at high levels of ecological literacy, which relies on a certain amount of scientific literacy. However, troubling evidence indicates an international pattern of student disengagement with science at the secondary level. Evidence also suggests that it is difficult to integrate environmental or sustainability education at this level, both within New Zealand and elsewhere. This research was aimed at examining the use of a novel approach, using permaculture, in junior secondary science (Years 9 and 10) to enhance students’ ecological and scientific literacy, as well as their attitudes toward studying science in school.Permaculture is an ecological design system based on science and ethics. A permaculture approach to science education involves eco-design thinking, as well as the use of local permaculture properties and practitioners, and the science behind common permaculture practices. The approach is also meant to be relevant and engaging, and to promote systems thinking. This study involved the design and delivery of an intervention based on permaculture principles to one Year 10 science class in New Zealand.Research took the form of a naturalistic, interpretive, mixed methods case study, which included the use of questionnaires, interviews, and observations. Data collection focused on the impacts of a permaculture approach on the teaching and learning of science, on students’ ecological literacy, and on students’ attitudes toward learning science in school. Pre- and post-intervention questionnaires probed students’ opinions on the environment, science, and learning science in school, and tested their sustainable thinking and systems thinking with concept mapping and SOLO Taxonomy exercises. Classroom observations took place over the course of 12 weeks, on average 3 days per week, totalling 31 days. Before and after some classroom visits, I had informal conversations with the teacher, along with three formal interviews before, during and after the intervention. Three focus groups of students were interviewed immediately following the intervention.Findings show that a permaculture approach to junior secondary science can impact positively on students’ understanding of science and sustainability, and may impact on their attitudes toward studying science in school. It also appeared to impact positively on the science teacher'sattitude toward including sustainability in his teaching practice, and on his own sustainability learning. Regarding both students and teachers, a permaculture approach appears to have been effective to cultivate attitudes and trellis learning.The teacher and the students responded favourably to many aspects of the intervention, including the overall focus on the environment, the field trips, and some classroom learning activities. The teacher reported appreciating the way the intervention contextualised science with real world examples. Most students reported appreciating the experiential aspects of the intervention, as well as the relevance that a permaculture approach to science education provided. Findings indicate that advances in ecological and scientific literacy varied among students. Some students appeared to: improve their use of science and sustainability vocabulary; become more aware of select socio-scientific issues; better recognise scientific and ecological limits and possibilities. Some students also showed advances in sustainable thinking and systems thinking. Although many students expressed concern about issues such as pollution, wildlife, and genetic engineering — and prioritised protecting the environment over making money — there appeared to be a disconnect between these feelings and a sense of personal responsibility to act. Most students reported enjoying learning science with a focus on the environment, with one cohort indicating much greater enjoyment of the permaculture approach than their usual level of enjoyment of learning science in school.Trends in environmental degradation, population growth, energy inflation, and economic stagnation — especially pronounced since the beginning of this inquiry in 2008 — indicate that the world of the future will require ecologically literate citizens who can design and create truly sustainable systems for all human endeavors. Cultivating such citizens, and trellising their science and sustainability learning has implications for science education. This thesis identifies an innovative approach for junior secondary science in New Zealand that provides a way towards a more sustainable future.

Canadian adolescent perceptions and knowledge about the social determinants of health: an observational study of Kingston, Ontario youth

BackgroundUpstream social determinants of health (SDH) have become widely acknowledged as lying at the root of poor health outcomes in Canada and globally. The Commission on the Social Determinants of Health maintains that educating the public about the SDH is a key step towards population health equity. Little is known about adolescent perceptions of the determinants of health. Curriculum in Ontario is lacking in SDH content, placing a much greater emphasis on individual, lifestyle behaviors, such as diet, physical activity, and safe sex practices. Identifying a gap in SDH knowledge within the adolescent population is required to advocate for health curriculum revision to include SDH material.MethodsStudent sociodemographic information was obtained through a self-administered questionnaire. Concept mapping exercises were used to determine students’ knowledge of the determinants of health and the SDH. Knowledge was approximated by the relative number of SDH concepts present in student maps. Poisson regression analysis was used to determine correlations between sociodemographic characteristics and SDH knowledge.ResultsConcept maps indicated that students attributed their health primarily to physical determinants versus social determinants; 44% of maps contained no SDH content. Statistical analyses indicated that students’ SDH knowledge varied by their relative socioeconomic status (SES).ConclusionsFindings suggest that 1) there is an SDH knowledge gap in the adolescent population, and 2) an inequity in adolescent SDH knowledge exists across socio-economic factors. Current Ontario health curriculum requires revision to include SDH material, which will require greater communication and collaboration from both educational institutions and health agencies in Canada.

Social Workers Can e-Learn: Evaluation of a Pilot Post-Qualifying e-Learning Course in Research Methods and Critical Appraisal Skills for Social Workers

Social workers are increasingly encouraged to become research minded and integrate research findings into their practice. However, there is a paucity of high-quality accessible training for social workers in research methods and critical appraisal skills. We developed an e-learning version of an MSc degree module to widen access to this kind of training and this paper presents the findings of an evaluation of a pilot of this e-learning course. To test the effectiveness of the e-learning environment in delivering research methods and critical appraisal skills training to social workers in comparison with a classroom group, we adopted a mixed methods approach which comprised concept mapping exercises, semi-structured interviews and evaluation questionnaires administered to the e-learners (n = 3) and a classroom comparison group (n = 12). Our analysis of the students' concept maps revealed no conspicuous differences in the quality of student knowledge changes that were a consequence of the mode of teaching delivery. The e-learners met the learning outcomes of the module to the same extent as the classroom group and were highly satisfied with the mode of delivery. Although this was a small pilot, it provided tentative evidence that social workers can use e-learning to develop evidence-based practice skills.

APS's Local Outreach Team in New Jersey reports on middle and high school “Neural Networks” teacher workshops

With curriculum by The American Physiological Society (APS), the Local Outreach Team (LOT) in New Jersey conducted multiple workshops for science high school and middle school teachers. These workshops, entitled "Neural Networks" contained content in line with the National Science Standards and covered neurophysiology topics such as reflexes and responses. Workshops engaged the teachers (who were instructors of chemistry, biology, physics, health, or physical education) in role‐play as students, in active, inquiry‐based learning with hands‐on lab activities and associated concept mapping exercises. The Neural Networks, Active Learning Module for Middle & High School Science Classes workshop was chosen by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Public Education department as an exhibitor workshop at the 56th Annual National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Conference on Science Education (2008, Boston MA). Two workshops (What is a neural network? and Neural Networks in the Body) were conducted at the 32nd Annual NJ Science Convention (2008, Somerset NJ). LOT continues to be a ready reference for the teachers as they bring the materials learned back to their own classrooms, as seen in results of evaluations and feedback surveys given to the workshop attendees. Workshop funding was provided by APS and SfN.

Effects of concept mapping strategy on learning performance in business and economics statistics

A concept map (CM) is a hierarchically arranged, graphic representation of the relationships among concepts. Concept mapping (CMING) is the process of constructing a CM. This paper examines whether a CMING strategy can be useful in helping students to improve their learning performance in a business and economics statistics course. A single factor, between subjects experimental design with three participant groups (collaborative concept mapping (CCMING) versus individual concept mapping (ICMING) versus traditional textbook exercises (TTE)) was employed. The experimental results suggest that adopting a CMING strategy can significantly improve student learning achievement in statistics, compared to using TTE, and adopting a CCMING improves student achievement even more than using ICMING. Furthermore, most of the students were satisfied with using CMING to learn statistics.

Effects of Concept Mapping Strategy on Business and Economics Statistics Learning Performance

Concept mapping is a learning strategy that emphasizes the meaningful relationships among concepts. It can help students clearly relate and distinguish differential statistical concepts. This strategy is also an example of an active and collaborative learning tool that instructors can use to move beyond chalk and talk. The author examined whether concept mapping strategy can be useful in helping students improve their learning performance in a business and economics statistics course. A single-factor, between subjects experimental design with three participant groups (collaborative concept mapping vs. individual concept mapping vs. traditional exercises) was employed. The experimental results suggested that adopting concept mapping strategy can significantly improve students' statistics learning achievement compared to using traditional exercises method, and adopting collaborative concept mapping can better improve students' achievement than using individual concept mapping. Furthermore, most of the students were satisfied with using concept mapping to learn statistics.

Probing Understanding in Physical Geology Using Concept Maps and Clinical Interviews

Using concept maps and clinical interviews, we assessed the extent to which undergraduate students restructure their conceptual knowledge at progressively more sophisticated levels over the course of a two-semester lecture-based physical geology sequence. Students completed concept mapping exercises and clinical interviews at regular intervals throughout the two semesters and data indicated that the course did not address integration of concepts into student knowledge domains. Concept maps and clinical interviews both illustrated acquisition of geologic concepts longitudinally with a disproportionately small increase in integration of those concepts into frameworks of understanding. However, concept maps and clinical interviews appear to be viable and complementary approaches in determining the degree to which student accomplishment objectives are being met.

Poultry production: a model for developing interactive Internet-based distance education

Over the last several decades, many poultry science programs have merged with other departments, but the poultry industry has undergone tremendous expansion worldwide, leading to a growing instructional void with regard to poultry production information. The objective of this project was to address the demand for information by developing two Web-based poultry production courses that cover management of broilers, turkeys, breeders, and layers. The Internet was chosen as the platform because it is asynchronous and may be accessed from any connected site around the world. To be effective, web-based courseware must be theoretically grounded and interactive, but university-level web-based distance education courses often fail to meet these standards. During courseware development, the impact of instructional techniques and technologies on interactivity and learning outcomes was explored. A content expert, an instructional designer, and a graphic artist carefully reviewed a variety of instructional techniques to increase interactivity. Concept mapping was chosen because it has been shown to be a superior learning tool for enhancing the exchange of ideas and knowledge between instructors, students, and content. A unique instructional interface was established that includes threaded e-mail discussion, thought questions, animation, hypertext, rollover interactions, video clips, and concept mapping exercises. Results indicate that the integration of concept mapping into web-based learning environments successfully increased interactivity and learning outcomes.

Investigating the cognitive structure of students studying quantum theory in an open university history of science course: a pilot study

Concept maps have been used to present information and to facilitate learning by students constructing their own maps, but there have been few studies on concept maps as a tool for research into the nature of student learning and the evaluation of the effectiveness of teaching. In setting concept mapping exercises two main issues have been identified, the framework in which students construct their maps (ie the instructions and assistance provided) and procedures for analyzing complete maps. Students taking a history course at a distance, generated concept maps after studying an introductory teaching unit on quantum mechanics. Analysis of the maps and comparison with the unit authors’map showed students’failure to identify‘radiation’as a central concept and to make links between concepts considered essential by the authors. Inspection of the teaching material indicated that‘radiation’as a central concept was implicit rather than directly explained. Analysis of students’descriptions of relationships between concepts identified different levels of description, with a group of students consistently responding at higher level than the rest of the sample. The study confirmed the usefulness of concept maps as a tool for research and evaluation and their potential for development as qualitative measures of learning.

Enhancing academic performance in distance education with concept mapping and inserted uestions

This research was designed to investigate the relative strength of two instructional strategies — inserted questions and concept mapping — for enhancing the academic performance of distance learners. The sample for this field experiment comprised one hundred and forty‐one nursing students enrolled in a 20‐week distance education course. A significant difference was found in favour of subjects who completed at least 11 of 12 concept mapping exercises. These subjects also indicated a preference for visual and graphic learning techniques. Inserted questions with explicit corrective feedback outperformed questions without such feedback.