The Effect of Using Concept Maps on Student’s Achievement (Essay Sample)

The Effects of using concept maps on students’ achievement
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The Effect of using concept maps on student’s achievement

Some students have difficulties connecting newly attained information to prior knowledge, identifying main ideas and supporting details, and drawing inferences. Hence, they need appropriate learning strategies to help them comprehend what they read across disciplines (Dye, 2000). To help make learning more meaningful for students, teachers need to find and implement ways to help students fit new knowledge into their schema of existing knowledge of a subject and/or to create a schema for newly constructed knowledge. One way that teachers can do this is through the use of graphic organizers in the classroom.
GOs are organizational tools implemented during instruction to help students to understand complicated information. Gallavan and Kottler (2007) described GOs as “visual models, which provide teachers with tools, concepts, and language to organize, understand, and apply information to achieve a variety of purposes and outcomes” (p. 117). GOs can be spatial and visual displays intended to facilitate learning by helping students make sense of complicated information, which, in turn, can improve students’ understanding and ability to decipher relationships among prior knowledge of terms, facts, and ideas with new information (Dexter et al., 2011; Mede, 2010). Teachers can use GOs to illustrate a student’s knowledge about a topic or section of text and highlight areas for improvement. According to Pang (2013), “graphic organizers have been widely used by teachers to help students organize and summarize content, classify facts, and analyze and compare contents they read” (p. 3). Scruggs, Mastropieri, and Okolo (2008) suggested that using GOs can help students access and understand the content being taught. They allow students to “represent facts, concepts, and relationships among ideas to support conceptual learning” in the classroom (Scruggs, Mastropieri, & Okolo, 2008, p. 12–13).

Moreover, GOs can reduce the cognitive demand on learning and aid in recalling information. They also help students master critical thinking skills and foster higher-level thinking skills by asking them to recall, evaluate, synthesize, analyze, and apply what they have learned (Cleveland, 2005). GOs can take various forms, including: semantic maps, structured overviews, concept maps, semantic organizers, story maps, Venn diagrams, tree diagrams, knowledge maps, and matrixes (Sam & Rajan, 2013). This paper will focus on concept map as organizing strategy, which can help students to organize information within a subject and show how the concepts are related to each other. I will specifically investigate the effectiveness of using concept map to help improve students’ achievement in all subjects’ areas.

Concept Maps and student participation

Research indicates that the use of concept maps to teach students to enhance their participation in classwork and increases their interactions with one another. The concept maps make a high point to ensure that students get indulged in-class work with a wide berth of knowledge that makes them fancy every bit of the classes. A study by Stoica et al. (2011) states that the use of concept maps in classrooms is an effective addition in the course of learning for the students. The authors report that the use of the concept maps make students to become active participants in the classes and that they can carry out their activities with much better development of the content that is required. Additionally, Stoica et al. (2011) enumerate the different ways that users of the concept maps increase the participation of the students to a level where they will contribute positively to the teachings of the instructor. In a study specifically conducted to evaluate the contributions of concept maps on the student performance, Cheema and Mirza (2013) unveil the different ways in which concept maps help to increase the level of student participation. The study realises that concept maps are instructional in the engagement of the critical thinking skills in students whereby they have to link different factors within the lessons and ensure that they find solutions to problems presented in the course of the class. This study portrays the precise margins of whatever ways the concept maps engage the students in finding out the realistic answers to different questions in the classroom.

In the study by Wilson and Kim (2016), a clear outline of the measures teachers uses the concept maps highlight that there are instances of active participation for the students. The issue of active participation for the students makes an excellent point in getting to ensure the growth of their knowledge in the presented areas. Notably, Wilson and Kim (2016) find out that student participation in classrooms will increase about the reading of comprehensions and student academic self-efficacy. The use of the tactic is therefore highlighted as a strong move towards ensuring that students have an increased way to handle their learning process. This makes a high point to indulge the critical points in the student learning process that will always engage them to make them active. Thus, when it comes to the use of the concept maps to increase the learning model of the students, several mentions work out to ensure the growth of their activities innovatively and appropriately.

Kuo et al. (2002) conduct a study to accurately evaluate the effect the concept mapping has on the text comprehension and summarization skills of the students. The research is conducted to outline the manner which concept mapping influences students’ abilities to carry out these activities, and in so doing, the research denotes that the concept mapping and teaching using the process makes sure that the teachers engage the students. The use of correctional models makes the students and teachers interact on a significant scale to ensure their understanding of the tested areas. Therefore, when it comes to concept mapping, the students will have a higher level of participation compared to when they do not have to use the concept maps. The teachers will have to use different correctional techniques as highlighted in the research such as scaffolding technique to ensure that the students measure up to the needs of the lessons. Hence, this research also indicates that the use of the concept maps enhances the student participation in the classrooms. The researchers suggest that concept maps are a definite way to engage the students and make them have a higher level of involvement in the classroom activities to measure up to the standards that are required of them. Hence, the research papers provided contribute to linking the issue of concept maps to a higher level of student participation in the activities that they are carrying out.
Concept Mapping and Academic Efficiency

Stoica et al. (2011) in research meant to look into the advantages of using the technique of concept maps in modern teaching highlight how they can help in the academic proficiency of a student. The research indicates that one of the significant merits of the use of the concept maps is the ability to reinforce an understanding. This shows that the application of the model helps the students to create links between whatever they are taught and the issues that matter most to them. Use of these issues in the course of learning makes the students to have a strong point that can link them with several mentions, which will influence their performance. On the other hand, the research shows that the use of the maps makes teachers assess students and know on what areas they have to increase the teaching process. Overall, concept maps as per the research help in developing more understanding for the students and enhancing how they carry out their activities. A research study by Cheema and Mirza (2013) indicate that concept mapping has different impacts on the students. The research specifically conducted to look into how the use of the concept maps affects the performance of students from different gender, highlight the fact that concept mapping increased academic achievement. The research shows an improvement of the students in whatever areas they are supposed to handle and the growth of the measures that could help them in conducting a better development of the core mentions within the classroom. Therefore, this research brings out the precise relationship between concept mapping and student performance.