Effect of Re-Composition Concept Mapping for Sharing Reference Maps on Serial Concept Mapping: A Preliminary Study

Abstract

In serial concept mapping, a concept map created during one lecture is extended in subsequent lectures, resulting in a comprehensive map over time. The quality of the initial maps directly influences the quality of future maps, making it crucial to enhance the concept maps created in each lecture. Teachers often develop reference concept maps beforehand to evaluate learners' maps and provide feedback based on these reference standards. Incorporating a reference map sharing phase after individual concept mapping is anticipated to improve the quality of learners' maps in each lecture and positively influence subsequent ones. However, the scratch- building method, where learners freely create all components of the map, poses challenges for effective reference map sharing due to discrepancies between the reference and learners' maps. To address this, we explored the re-composition method, where learners construct concept maps by reorganizing pre-provided components, allowing them to concentrate on structural aspects rather than creating the components themselves. This paper compares the effects of reference map sharing between individual concept mapping using the re-composition method and the scratch- building method. In the re-composition method, components are provided by decomposing the reference map, enabling learners to focus on structural differences during the reference map sharing phase. The study was conducted in university lectures, involving three map-building sessions and two reference map sharing sessions across three lectures for both groups. Results showed that the quality of each map (submap) improved incrementally for the re-composition group but not for the scratch-building group. This suggests that reference map sharing in serial concept mapping is more effective when using the re-composition method.