An exploration of the concept map as an interview tool to facilitate the externalization of students' understandings about global atmospheric change
✍ Scribed by James A. Rye; Peter A. Rubba
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 215 KB
- Volume
- 35
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-4308
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of two different types of interviews-one that did (POSTICM) and one that did not (POSTI) embed a concept-mapping process-to elicit students' postinstructional understandings about chlorofluorocarbons and their role in global atmospheric change (GAC). A chief criterion measure was accordance, the degree to which students held the ideal postinstructional understanding set forth in a teacher-expert concept map. After GAC instruction that included concept-mapping activities, 34 eighth-grade science students were assigned randomly to groups and completed either POSTICM or POSTI. These students and their teacher also completed relatedness ratings of central concepts from the teacher-expert map. The Knowledge Network Organizing Tool™ was used to transform relatedness ratings to Pathfinder networks and compare nets to yield a student to teacher similarity index (Pathfinder index). Regression analysis revealed that type of interview did not predict accordance. However, most POSTICM students perceived the concept-mapping interview component to be helpful and affect positively their answers to the interview questions. The Pathfinder index did predict (p ϭ .003) accordance-the Pathfinder index was a reliable confirmatory measure of the degree to which students held the ideal postinstructional understanding.