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 usefulness 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 their conceptual understanding of the target physics concepts than participants who did not construct such maps. This difference, however, was not statistically significant. Moreover, the intervention group participants noted that concept mapping helped them to organize their knowledge and prepare for the course experiments, and promoted their understanding of the target physics content.