In an effort to improve student conceptual understanding and help students better connect pre-existing knowledge to new ideas, a concept map assignment was implemented in a first-year college level general chemistry course. This implementation included a quasi-experiment that was carried out in discussion group recitation sections within a third-quarter general chemistry course. Students enrolled in a single section of the course were divided into two groups in which a concept map treatment was compared to a control group that completed short journal entries. Comparison of a concept inventory post-test using an independent samples t-test indicates students in the concept map treatment appear to perform better than the students in the journal control group (t = 2.34, mean difference = 0.844, p < 0.05). However, a multi-variable regression analysis in which the concept inventory post-test scores were compared between the treatment and control groups, while traits related to incoming academic preparation were held constant, suggests there was no significant difference in performance (unstandardized b = 0.222, p = 0.540). The quality of the students’ concept maps was also evaluated and correlated to student performance on the concept inventory, and it appears students who were better at concept mapping made greater gains in conceptual understanding (Pearson's r = 0.295, p < 0.05). When the relationship between the quality of concept mapping and concept inventory post-test was determined while holding constant covariates related to incoming academic preparation, the unstandardized B coefficient was positive, but was not significant at the p = 0.05 level (unstandardized b = 0.215, p = 0.134) This study does not provide unequivocal evidence that a concept map treatment leads to greater gains in conceptual understanding compared to a control population, or that students with better concept mapping skills performed better on the concept inventory instrument. Nevertheless, a template for implementing a concept map assignment in a large enrollment course is provided, and the results presented herein might prompt chemistry instructors to consider including concept map assignments in their instructional toolbox.

中文翻译：

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在大规模的一般化学课程中重新探讨概念图的使用：实施和评估

为了提高学生的概念理解能力，并帮助他们更好地将已有知识与新思想联系起来，在大学一年级普通化学课程中实施了概念图分配。该实施方案包括一个准实验，该实验在第三季度的普通化学课程的讨论小组复习部分中进行。选修课程的一个部分的学生分为两组，将概念图处理与完成短日记条目的对照组进行比较。使用独立样本的t检验对概念清单后测试的比较表明，概念图处理中的学生表现比期刊对照组中的学生更好（t= 2.34，平均差异= 0.844，p <0.05）。然而，多变量回归分析比较了治疗组和对照组的概念库存测试后得分，而与即将到来的学业准备相关的特征保持不变，这表明绩效没有显着差异（未标准化的b = 0.222）。 ，p＝ 0.540）。还评估了学生概念图的质量，并将其与概念清单上的学生表现相关联，看来，在概念图方面更擅长的学生在概念理解上获得了更大的收获（Pearson r = 0.295，p<0.05）。当在保持与即将到来的学业准备相关的协变量的同时确定概念图的质量与概念清单后测之间的关系时，未标准化的B系数为正，但在p = 0.05的水平上不显着（未标准化的b = 0.215，p= 0.134）这项研究没有提供明确的证据，即与对照组相比，概念图的处理可带来更大的概念了解，或者具有更好概念图技能的学生在概念清单工具上的表现更好。尽管如此，仍然提供了用于在大型注册课程中实施概念图分配的模板，并且此处呈现的结果可能会促使化学教员考虑在他们的指导工具箱中包括概念图分配。