Doing the right thing versus doing the right thing right: Concept mapping in a freshmen physics laboratory

This study assessed the effectiveness of concept maps as learning tools in developing students' conceptual understanding in a freshmen college physics laboratory course, and explored students' perceptions regarding the useful ness of concept maps in the laboratory. The intervention group participants who constructed pre- and post-laboratory concept maps scored substantially higher (on the order of 12 percentage points) on a test that assessed thei r conceptual understanding of the target physics concepts than participants who did not construct such maps. This difference, however, was not statist ically significant. Moreover, the intervention group participants noted tha t concept mapping helped them to organize their knowledge and prepare for t he course experiments, and promoted their understanding of the target physi cs content.