Acta Didactica Napocensia
Volume 10 Number 2, pages 109-122
Published: 25 August 2017
Concept Mappıng as a Tool to Develop and Measure Students’
Understandıng ın Scıence
Sema Tan, Omer Erdimez, Robert Zimmerman
Abstract: Concept maps measured a student’s understanding of the complexity
of concepts, and interrelationships. Novak and Gowin (1984) claimed that the continuous
use of concept maps increased the complexity and interconnectedness of
students’ understanding of relationships between concepts in a particular
science domain. This study has two
purposes; the first one was to test this claim and examine how the repeated use of
concept maps affected the complexity and interconnectedness of concepts
independent of science subjects in
elementary school, the second one was to compare the sensitivity
of the Ruiz-Primo et al. (1997), and the Novak and Gowin (1984) grading systems
for concept maps. The sample group consisted of 23
students including 14 male and 9 female students. We employed paired sample t-tests to answer the research questions,
and found that the scores obtained for the fifth science unit was significantly
different from the first one. Also, Novak and Gowin’s (1984) scoring system was better than
Ruiz-Primo et al. (1997) to evaluate complexity in students’ thinking except
for one of the units. We conclude that concept
maps have the potential to measure change in complexity and interconnectivity
of concept maps. Furthermore, repeated use of concept maps has the potential to
increase the complexity and interconnectedness of student concept maps, and
therefore improve their understanding of science independent of science
content.
Key words: concept maps, scoring,
science, assessment