Concept mapping and science achievement of middle grade students.

Concept Mapping and Science Achievement of Middle Grade Students--Snead & Snead

The fifth study reports on the effects of concept mapping on science achievement of middle grade science students. A total of 182 eighth-grade science students within eight intact classes with similar ability levels were assigned into treatment and control groups. All classes were administered a weather pretest, were taught the same weather unit during a nine-week period, and completed a weather posttest. The experimental group classes were required to construct concept maps during key phases of the unit, while the control group classes engaged in learning activities related to the concepts expected to appear on a concept map. Posttest data from 162 students were scored and analyzed. The results indicated no significant difference on posttest performance between the concept mapping group and those who did not complete concept maps. There were interesting trends and patterns reported for both the high-ability and average-ability concept mapping groups on several of the performance assessment items when compared to the non-concept mapping groups. The authors suggest that concept mapping may be more useful to average-ability students than to above-average students; however, considerable teaching time and practice is needed to construct quality maps. Finally, if concept maps are to be used as a learning strategy, then performance assessments appear more sensitive to this type of learning than traditional tests.