Concept Mapping Tasks Research Articles

Re-examining the testing effect as a learning strategy: the advantage of retrieval practice over concept mapping as a methodological artifact.

Several previous studies appear to have demonstrated that studying with retrieval practice produces more learning than studying with concept mapping, a finding based on which an extended use of retrieval practice in educational practice was recommended. However, a closer examination of the methods used in these previous studies reveals a crucial confounding variable: Whereas participants in the concept mapping conditions performed a concept mapping task without any subsequent memorizing of the learning material, participants in the retrieval practice conditions performed not only retrieval practice but also an additional memorization task, which doubled the total memorization time. The present preregistered study examined whether the advantage observed in the retrieval practice condition over the concept mapping condition in previous studies was actually driven by additional memorization rather than by retrieval practice. While we replicated the previous finding that retrieval practice in combination with additional memorizing produces more learning than concept mapping without additional memorizing, this advantage of retrieval practice over concept mapping vanished when participants in the concept mapping condition, too, memorized the learning material after having created a concept map. These findings demonstrate that the assumed advantage of retrieval practice over concept mapping in fact represents a methodological artifact. Besides serving as a reminder of the importance of a solid methodology, the present study also illustrates the importance of using of an adequate terminology. Depicting a learning strategy condition as "retrieval practice" when the condition actually encompasses not only retrieval practice but also additional memorizing obfuscates the possibility that observed memory advantages may not be fueled by retrieval practice, i.e., the learning strategy as such. We conclude by giving an outlook on the ramifications of our findings for cognitive and educational psychology.

Explainable Metaphor Identification Inspired by Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also reflects the concept projection between source and target domains in human cognition. Previous sequence tagging-based metaphor identification methods could not model the concept projection, resulting in a limitation that the outputs of these models are unexplainable in the predictions of the metaphoricity labels. In this work, we propose the first explainable metaphor identification model, inspired by Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The model is based on statistic learning, a lexical resource, and a novel reward mechanism. Our model can identify the metaphoricity on the word-pair level, and explain the predicted metaphoricity labels via learned concept mappings. The use of the reward mechanism allows the model to learn the optimal concept mappings without knowing their true labels. Our method is also applicable for the concepts that are out of training domains by using the lexical resource. The automatically generated concept mappings demonstrate the implicit human thoughts in metaphoric expressions. Our experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed model in metaphor identification, and concept mapping tasks, respectively.

Complementary measures of conceptual understanding: a case about triangle concepts

Mathematics curricula from many countries have emphasized conceptual understanding as more important than the mastery of isolated skills. However, researchers and educators have used different measures to access students’ conceptual understanding of mathematics. Thus, it seems necessary to further explore whether and to what extent different measurement techniques could lead to coherent findings. Therefore, this study compares the techniques that are commonly used in school settings with those proposed by researchers as effective in addressing conceptual understanding. Specifically, this study compares three techniques used to assess the quality of the conceptual understanding of triangles, conducted among a class of grade 8 students in China. The three techniques were a definition-example-nonexample test, a concept-mapping task, and a traditional paper-and-pencil test on the operations of the concepts and their relationships. The results show that these techniques provide complementary, rather than convergent, insights into students’ conceptual understanding. Their strengths and limitations in addressing students’ conceptual understanding were identified. The findings not only provide information for researchers, educators, and classroom teachers in identifying alternative techniques in assessing conceptual understanding but also a more holistic view of students’ conceptual understanding when different perspectives of this understanding are made explicit.

Evaluation of a Concept Mapping Task Using Named Entity Recognition and Normalization in Unstructured Clinical Text

In this pilot study, we explore the feasibility and accuracy of using a query in a commercial natural language processing engine in a named entity recognition and normalization task to extract a wide spectrum of clinical concepts from free text clinical letters. Editorial guidance developed by two independent clinicians was used to annotate sixty anonymized clinic letters to create the gold standard. Concepts were categorized by semantic type, and labels were applied to indicate contextual attributes such as negation. The natural language processing (NLP) engine was Linguamatics I2E version 5.3.1, equipped with an algorithm for contextualizing words and phrases and an ontology of terms from Intelligent Medical Objects to which those tokens were mapped. Performance of the engine was assessed on a training set of the documents using precision, recall, and the F1 score, with subset analysis for semantic type, accurate negation, exact versus partial conceptual matching, and discontinuous text. The engine underwent tuning, and the final performance was determined for a test set. The test set showed an F1 score of 0.81 and 0.84 using strict and relaxed criteria respectively when appropriate negation was not required and 0.75 and 0.77 when it was. F1 scores were higher when concepts were derived from continuous text only. This pilot study showed that a commercially available NLP engine delivered good overall results for identifying a wide spectrum of structured clinical concepts. Such a system holds promise for extracting concepts from free text to populate problem lists or for data mining projects.

How Concept Maps with and without a List of Concepts Differ: The Case of Statistics

Concept mapping is a popular tool for knowledge structure assessment. In recent years, both the amount of research about concept maps and their measurement ability have grown. It has been shown that concept maps with different types of tasks, for instance, links between concepts given or selected by a respondent, provide information about the different aspects of students’ knowledge structure. This study explores features of concept mapping with and without a list of concepts. At first, eleven masters students constructed concept maps with a topic on statistical data analysis and, after three weeks, repeated the task with the same topic and a predefined list of concepts. Both types of concept maps were evaluated using traditional scoring indicators and indicators from the network analysis. All indicators were tested for significant differences, and then the content of these maps was analysed. Results show that the list of concepts forced respondents to construct more connective maps, which is related to a more developed knowledge structure. Moreover, it is easier for them, when including even abstract concepts, to define their role in the domain. However, respondents use concepts and group them in different ways depending on the instruction. It seems that respondents feel a “list stress”, which leads to differences in the content. These findings demonstrate the possibilities of using different concept mapping tasks for learning and assessment.

The role of conceptual metaphors in novice teachers’ developing curricular knowledge: a case from second language writing

ABSTRACTThe importance of teacher cognition in curriculum implementation and the role of conceptual metaphor in teachers’ thinking are equally well documented, yet the role conceptual metaphor might play in teachers’ knowledge of curriculum has received less research attention. Drawing on a range of qualitative data, this study examines how five novice teachers used metaphor in concept-mapping tasks to make sense of an unfamiliar curriculum. The results show that the majority of the teachers spontaneously used conceptual metaphors to depict their curricular knowledge. Moreover, detailed case studies of two teachers’ developing curricular thinking show that the conceptual metaphors they used functioned as psychological tools assisting in structuring their developing knowledge of the curriculum and in integrating new insights gained during teaching. These results indicate that analysis of teachers’ curricular metaphors may yield insights for curriculum designers and that metaphor construction may be a valuable tool to promote teacher curricular knowledge development.

Concept Mapping for Noun Identification in CLIL Textbooks by Primary Education Students

This study aims at observing if initial training on concept mapping improves pupils’ skills on noun category identification from foreign language (L2) texts. To observe the null hypothesis, learners receive short-term training to manage the basics of concept mapping. After the intervention, in a classroom context of reading and writing assignments in the English language, Spanish primary students identify and circle substantives in texts from their CLIL textbooks. The sample comprises sixty fifth-grade Spanish pupils age-ranged 10 to 11. Though the school has an English-Spanish bilingual program, the students are not complete bilinguals. In the sample, participants belong to both male and female genders non randomly assigned. Concerning the identification of singular and collective nouns from texts, including plural irregular nouns, both treated and control sample groups displayed similar results. Although the instructed group was skilled in detecting and categorizing hypernyms and first hyponym categories of nouns, they did not precisely discriminate adjectives, confusing them with nouns. Dissimilarly, the untrained control group not only mistakenly identified adjectives as nouns but also other grammatical categories as verbs, conjunctions, pronouns, and adverbs. The scarce disclosed precision by the non-trained group was also perceptible in the production of the concept maps. When they had to make the concept mapping tasks, control participants tended to make flow charts, mind maps, and tree diagrams instead. Contrarily, the trained group accomplished the activities satisfactorily. Yet the outcome of this study reveals that a little training on concept mapping leads to disclosing slight achievement in discriminating information from L2 texts in students. Hence, statistical analysis reveals that concept mapping helps students differentiate lexical and grammatical categories and to synthesize the information.

An adapted concept mapping technique to help conservation implementation – Exemplified for wolves returning to Lower Saxony in Germany

While higher-order predators like wolves (canis lupus) serve important ecological roles within social-ecological systems, prior studies indicated differences in the acknowledgement of these roles by specific stakeholder groups. As diverging underlying mental models may cause these differences in the societal valuation of the species, there is a need for the development of innovative methods to systematically uncover stakeholders' interests and their conceptions about relevant conservation issues. This paper proposes a concept mapping technique as a suitable way to investigate stakeholders' mental models based on their understanding of underlying reasons, consequences and solutions for a selected conservation issue. To illustrate the utilization of the methodology, we present a case study about the conservation of returning wolves in Lower Saxony, a region within North-West Germany. In the case study, we used a concept mapping task within face-to-face interviews to investigate the mental models of nine stakeholders from the three most important interest groups of hunters, shepherds, and conservationists. After the inductive categorization of the resulting qualitative data, we ordered the resulting categories into matrices with a rank order cluster (ROC) algorithm and found different underlying reasons and consequences for the conservation conflict. Thereby, we were able to identify 19 individual solutions, which however differed concerning their consensus between stakeholder groups. Only the consequence-oriented solution of supporting livestock owners was mentioned by all stakeholder groups. Overall, we were able to subsume stakeholders’ solutions into three implementation spaces (human-human focused, population-management related and consequence-oriented solutions). While the solutions indicated possible case-specific interventions, the implementation spaces may be interesting for a further investigation within other conservation cases, and may illustrate how underlying mental models may be used to determine successful strategies for conservation management.

Empirical evidence that concept mapping reduces neurocognitive effort during concept generation for sustainability

Sustainable development is a systems problem that requires a shift in thinking from individual parts to the relationships between them. Enabling those involved in the development process to more quickly think in systems is therefore vital to create more sustainable solutions. However, measuring the ability to think in systems is a challenge because of the limited methods to observe behavior or measure outcomes. Recent advances in neuroimaging offer a radically new approach to measure one's ability to think in systems. The specific technique, called functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), captures the change in oxygenated blood in the cortical region of the brain, which is a proxy for elevated cognitive activation. In this study, engineering students (n = 28) performed both concept mapping (i.e., labeling concepts and drawing directional connections between them) and concept listing (i.e., generating a list of concepts without indicating relationships) related to grand challenges for sustainability. fNIRS captured the increase in oxygenated blood along the prefrontal and parietal cortex during both concept mapping and listing tasks. Self-evaluation and concept mapping scores were also captured and compared. Concept mapping led to significantly more concepts compared to concept listing. Concept mapping also required less cognitive resources (i.e., oxygenated blood) to generate more concepts. The region of the brain that received more cognitive resources is also significantly different when participants were using concept listing and mapping. Concept mapping directed more cognitive resources to the regions of the brain associated with cognitive flexibility and decreased cognitive resources in regions associated with visuospatial processing. Self-evaluation of systems thinking was negatively correlated with concept mapping scores, meaning students with high perceived ability produce worse concept maps. Global efficiency of brain networks was positively correlated to concept map scores and more accurately measure performance compared to self-evaluation. This study provides neurocognitive evidence to support the benefits of concept mapping and also demonstrates the added advantages of neuroimaging to study systems thinking.

Investigating multimedia effects on concept map building: Impact on map quality, information processing and learning outcome

Two experimental studies were carried out to investigate whether adding multimedia features in a concept mapping task would improve the quality of the map built by students and promote more effective learning with expository hypertexts. Ninety-Nine undergraduates built a concept map to learn about a topic (water cycle or nitrogen cycle) either with a text-based or with a multimedia presentation of concepts (i.e. concepts were presented as textual labels illustrated with relevant pictures). Multimedia presentation of concepts was expected to foster the construction of a more elaborate concept map, to increase information processing and to improve learning outcome. Results of the two experiments were consistent by showing that multimedia presentation led learners to spend more time building the concept map and to build more coherent maps (i.e. text-based inter-connected concepts). In addition, experiment 2 showed that the multimedia presentation of concepts in concept mapping could also foster deeper exploration of the hypertext. However, learning outcomes were not affected by the learning conditions.

EFL Engineering Students’ Research Article Genre Knowledge Development through Concept Mapping Tasks: A Qualitative Interview-based Study

This qualitative study explores how the use of concept mapping can function as a genre knowledge scaffold within an experimental course that aimed to teach EFL undergraduate students how to read primary research articles in their discipline. Using semi-structured student interviews, the study explored the development of the rhetorical, formal, process and content research article genre facets of three second-year Electrical and Computer Engineering students after working collaboratively on three specially designed concept mapping tasks underpinned by the theories of genre analysis and metacognition. Our data suggest that the process of visual conceptualization encouraged students to engage in deeper forms of genre analysis and explore the different dimensions of the multifaced research article genre construct.

Farklı Kavram Haritası Oluşturma Yöntemlerinin Karşılaştırılması: Kimya Öğretmen Adayı Görüşleri

Kavram haritalarının yaygın bir değerlendirme aracı olarak kullanılmasını sağlayabilmek için hangi kavram haritası oluşturma yönteminin geçerli ve güvenilir şekilde öğrencinin bilgisini yansıttığının ortaya konması gerekir. Bu çalışmanın amacı; Novak Tipi, Numaralandırma Tipi, Kavram Boşluk Doldurma ve İlişki Boşluk Doldurma olmak üzere dört farklı kavram haritası oluşturma yönteminin bir değerlendirme aracı olarak etkinliklerini nitel veriler bağlamında kıyaslamaktır. Bu amaçla, kimya öğretmen adaylarının farklı yöntemlerle kavram haritası oluşturmaları ve oluşturdukları bu haritaları puanlamaları sağlanarak, öğretmen adaylarının bu süreçle ilgili görüşleri belirlendi. Çalışmada kimya öğretmen adaylarının görüşleri, nitel yaklaşım esas alınarak durum çalışması deseni ile incelendi. Katılımcıların bu yöntemlerle ilgili görüşleri; Günlük 1, Günlük 2, “Kavram haritası yazılı görüş soruları” formu ve “Nitel yazılı görüş soruları” formu, öğretmen adaylarıyla yapılan bireysel yarı yapılandırılmış görüşmelerden elde edildi. Çalışmada veri kaynakları çeşitlemesi yapılarak verilerin geçerliği sağlanmış oldu. Çalışmanın bulgularına göre Novak ve Numaralandırma yöntemleri hazırlanması ve puanlanması zaman alıcı kavram haritası yöntemler olarak bulunmuştur. Ancak her iki yöntem de öğrenci bilgisini yansıtma açısından iyi ve ölçüm aracı olarak oldukça ayırt edici olduğundan eğer zaman sorunu yoksa ve değerlendirenin uzmanlığı yeterli düzeyde ise değerlendirme aşamasında boşluk doldurma yöntemlerine göre daha etkili bir şekilde kullanılabilir. Kavram ve ilişki boşluk doldurma yöntemleri hem oluşturma kısa zaman aldığından hem de puanlanması daha kolay ve nesnel olduğundan sonuç değerlendirme için oldukça uygundur. Ancak özellikle kavram boşluk doldurma tipi haritalarda puanları etkileyebilecek şans başarısı göz önünde bulundurulmalıdır.

Integrating implementation and user-centred design strategies to enhance the impact of health services: protocol from a concept mapping study

BackgroundInnovative approaches are needed to maximise the uptake and sustainment of evidence-based practices in a variety of health service contexts. This protocol describes a study that will seek to characterise the potential of one such approach, user-centred design (UCD), which is an emerging field that seeks to ground the design of an innovation in information about the people who will ultimately use that innovation. The use of UCD to enhance strategies for implementation of health services, although promising, requires a multidisciplinary perspective based on a firm understanding of how experts from each discipline perceives the interrelatedness and suitability of these strategies.MethodThis online study will use a combination of purposive and snowball sampling to recruit a sample of implementation experts (n = 30) and UCD experts (n = 30). These participants will each complete a concept mapping task, which is a mixed-method conceptualisation technique that will allow for identification of distinct clusters of implementation and/or UCD strategies. The research team has selected a set of implementation strategies and UCD strategies that each participant will sort and rate on dimensions of importance and feasibility. Data analyses will focus on describing the sample, identifying related clusters of strategies, and examining the convergences, divergences, and potential for collaboration between implementation science and UCD.DiscussionBy leading to a better understanding of the overlap between implementation science and UCD, grounded within established theoretical frameworks, this study holds promise for improving the impact and sustainability of evidence-based health services in community settings.

Using a concept mapping strategy to improve the motivation of EFL students in Google Hangouts Peer-Tutoring Sessions with native speakers

ABSTRACTThis study examines four elements of learner motivation, attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction, in an EFL speaking course that uses the computer mediated communication (CMC) tool Google Hangouts. The study found that a preparatory concept mapping task before the CMC sessions improved students’ perceived attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. However, follow-up reflective worksheets had no effect on perceived attention, relevance, confidence, or satisfaction. Instructors should use concept mapping in a pre-task to support learners engaged in CMC-based speaking activities with native and non-native speakers. When the students used concept mapping to prepare for the CMC-based speaking activities, they exhibited higher confidence in their oral practice activities with a native speaker.

Priming students for whole-class interaction: using interdependence to support behavioral engagement

Student interaction at a whole-class level is tied to learning outcomes, but encouraging students to engage with their peers at a whole-class level is difficult. While little research has sought to promote student engagement with one another at this level, one factor that has been shown to increase student interaction in pairs and small groups is student–student interdependency. Yet, to date, no studies have attempted to examine the impact of prior interdependency at this smaller scale on students’ interactions as a whole-class. The current study tested this relationship in an undergraduate class learning science content (n = 19) through structuring interdependency (task and resource) during science learning. Students completed six science learning sessions each of which included a science learning activity followed by a whole-class concept mapping task. Students were audio and video recorded during the whole-class task, and then individual student behavior was coded in 10 s intervals during the first 10 min of each session. Generalized regression results showed that adding small group interdependency during learning predicted significantly more student science discussion (R2 = .05) and supportive interactions (R2 = .16), while predicting decreased expressions of science misunderstanding (R2 = .07) during the whole-class task. Additionally, the combination of task and resource interdependency predicted a further decrease in student expressions of misunderstanding (R2 = .07), but also increased student social distraction in comparison to task interdependency alone (R2 = .28). Together these findings suggest that prior interdependency can be leveraged to increase student behavioral engagement at the whole-class level.

User conceptualizations of derivative relationships in the bibliographic universe

PurposeConsiderable effort is devoted to developing new models for organizing bibliographic metadata. However, such models have been repeatedly criticized for their lack of proper user testing. The purpose of this paper is to present a study on how non-experts in bibliographic systems map the bibliographic universe and, in particular, how they conceptualize relationships between independent but strongly related entities.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on an open concept-mapping task performed to externalize the conceptualizations of 98 novice students. The conceptualizations of the resulting concept maps are identified and analyzed statistically.FindingsThe study shows that the participants’ conceptualizations have great variety, differing in detail and granularity. These conceptualizations can be categorized into two main groups according to derivative relationships: those that apply a single-entity model directly relating document entities and those (the majority) that apply a multi-entity model relating documents through a high-level collocating node. These high-level nodes seem to be most adequately interpreted either as superwork devices collocating documents belonging to the same bibliographic family or as devices collocating documents belonging to a shared fictional world.Originality/valueThe findings can guide the work to develop bibliographic standards. Based on the diversity of the conceptualizations, the findings also emphasize the need for more user testing of both conceptual models and the bibliographic end-user systems implementing those models.

User-identified electronic cigarette behavioral strategies and device characteristics for cigarette smoking reduction

BackgroundThere is limited evidence on how cigarette smokers use electronic cigarettes (ECIGs) for smoking cessation and reduction. This study used concept mapping, a participatory mixed-methods research approach, to identify ECIG use behaviors and device characteristics perceived to be associated with cigarette smoking cessation or reduction. MethodsCurrent ECIG users aged 18–64 were recruited from seven cities selected randomly from U.S. census tract regions. Participants were invited to complete concept mapping tasks: brainstorming, sorting and rating (n=72). During brainstorming, participants generated statements in response to a focus prompt (“A SPECIFIC WAY I HAVE USED electronic cigarettes to reduce my cigarette smoking or a SPECIFIC WAY electronic cigarettes help me reduce my cigarette smoking is…”) and then sorted and rated the statements. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analyses were used to generate a cluster map that was interpreted by the research team. ResultsEight thematic clusters were identified: Convenience, Perceived Health Effects, Ease of Use, Versatility and Variety, Advantages of ECIGs over Cigarettes, Cigarette Substitutability, Reducing Harms to Self and Others, and Social Benefits. Participants generated several statements that related to specific behavioral strategies used when using ECIGs for smoking reduction/complete switching behaviors such as making rapid transitions from smoking to ECIG use or using certain ECIG liquids or devices. Former smokers rated the Perceived Health Effects cluster and several behavioral strategy statements higher than current smokers. ConclusionsThese results help to identify ECIG use behaviors and characteristics perceived by ECIG users to aid in cigarette smoking cessation or reduction.

Making Sense of Abstract Algebra: Exploring Secondary Teachers’ Understandings of Inverse Functions in Relation to Its Group Structure

ABSTRACTThis article draws on semi-structured, task-based interviews to explore secondary teachers’ (N = 7) understandings of inverse functions in relation to abstract algebra. In particular, a concept map task is used to understand the degree to which participants, having recently taken an abstract algebra course, situated inverse functions within its group structure (i.e., the set of invertible functions under composition). In addition, their particular conceptions of functions and function composition throughout the interviews were then also considered as a means to explore further their responses during the interviews. Findings indicate that only two participants showed evidence of the desirable mathematically powerful understandings from abstract algebra in relation to inverse functions, and further analysis suggests a variety of challenges in terms of developing meaningful connections, which were more related to conceptions about secondary content than to the abstract algebra content. Implications for the mathematical preparation of secondary teachers are discussed.

Using Digital Concept Maps to Distinguish Between Young Refugees’ Challenges

Digital media are beneficial for research of complex refugee issues, as they allow refugees to express their personal experiences of complex issues in ways that are not restricted by language barriers or limited in authenticity, while also offering researchers a way to systematically compare refugees’ varied experiences. We used a computerised concept mapping task to ask 74 young refugees (teenagers and young adults), from three separately recruited samples, to think about their experiences with various challenges they might face during settlement, distinguishing between their challenges in terms of size. Our analyses focused on one major challenge in Australia, learning the English language, and how it related to ten other challenges of resettlement. The three samples differed in educational setting, cultural background, age, and time in Australia. These refugees faced multiple challenges in their lives. Regardless of differences between the groups, the 74 shared a single pattern of experiences in which English language was substantially bigger, and more frequently endorsed, than other challenges. The three samples differed in how they described their experiences with their English language challenges. Our findings suggest a need for more support learning the English language, even for those who might be assumed to have good levels of conversational or academic English. This support needs to extend beyond the 510 hours of support received upon arrival in the country. Findings also suggest that such support could help young refugees overcome other challenges as they settle in Australia, especially in their academic, social, and employment experiences.

Tracking the Resolution of Student Misconceptions about the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology.

The goal of our study was to track changes in student understanding of the central dogma of molecular biology before and after taking a genetics course. Concept maps require the ability to synthesize new information into existing knowledge frameworks, and so the hypothesis guiding this study was that student performance on concept maps reveals specific central dogma misconceptions gained, lost, and retained by students. Students in a genetics course completed pre- and posttest concept mapping tasks using terms related to the central dogma. Student maps increased in complexity and validity, indicating learning gains in both content and complexity of understanding. Changes in each of the 351 possible connections in the mapping task were tracked for each student. Our students did not retain much about the central dogma from their introductory biology courses, but they did move to more advanced levels of understanding by the end of the genetics course. The information they retained from their introductory courses focused on structural components (e.g., protein is made of amino acids) and not on overall mechanistic components (e.g., DNA comes before RNA, the ribosome makes protein). Students made the greatest gains in connections related to transcription, and they resolved the most prior misconceptions about translation. These concept-mapping tasks revealed that students are able to correct prior misconceptions about the central dogma during an intermediate-level genetics course. From these results, educators can design new classroom interventions to target those aspects of this foundational principle with which students have the most trouble.