Concept Mapping Effects on Science Content Comprehension of Low-Achieving
Inner-City Seventh Graders
Guastello, E. F., Beasley, T. M., & Sinatra, R.C. (2000). Concept mapping effects on science content comprehension of low-achieving inner-city seventh graders. Remedial and Special Education, 21, 356-365.
Abstracted by Barbara Higgins-Dover
The authors of this article describe the difficulties faced by inner-city students in trying to understand text patterns and using text structure knowledge to facilitate reading and writing of text. An example content map, created by the students and their teacher, is incorporated into the reading, as well as, a table illustrating the findings of using concept mapping with control groups in the study.
Concept Maps: A definition of concept maps is provided for the reader and described as a visual organizer which uses figures, lines, arrows, and spatial configurations to show how content ideas and concepts are related. The authors suggest that by using the concept map we can graphically construct a representation of text structure patterns. The concept map is used in the studies described throughout the article.
Research on Text Structure and Concept Maps: Several research studies using text structuring and concept mapping are provided. Table 1 illustrates the means and standard deviations for concept-mapping using control groups. Figure 1 is also provided as an example of a semantic map used with students in these studies. Tools such as these are believed to be beneficial in improving the reading comprehension and planning for writing stages of learning.
Discussion and Implications: A discussion of the results of the study is included which "indicates that using an instructional technique with graphic representations is a more effective teaching approach than more traditional methods." Concept mapping, as discussed, allows teachers and students to translate ideas and concepts into visual, graphic plans for organizing reading assignments, reports, and essays.
The authors describe the findings from these and previous studies, using visual maps and graphic organizers, as enhancements to teaching effectiveness.
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