Chiou, C. (2008). The effect of concept mapping on students’ learning achievements and interests. Innovations in Education and Teaching International. (45)4, 375-387
Purpose/Problem
The purpose of this experimental study was to examine whether concept mapping could be used to improve accounting education in an advanced accounting course in a university setting in Taiwan. The researcher of the study examined two areas of interest: whether concept mapping improved students’ learning achievement in an advanced accounting course; and the attitudes of students toward concept mapping as a learning tool. Student learning achievement was measured by accounting achievement scores in pre- and post-test instruments as well an independent CPA-level exam measuring student knowledge of the domain area. Student attitude toward concept mapping was measured pre- and post-implementation of the concept mapping intervention by a satisfaction questionnaire developed by the researcher.
This study is noteworthy because the use of concept mapping as an instructional and summative tool is contrasted with traditional teaching methodologies in a domain that examines complex mathematical concepts. In addition, the study attempts to measure the effect of student attitudes toward concept mapping both before and after implementation of the concept mapping protocol. The researcher grounded his study by citing well-established research indicating the efficacy of concept mapping as an effective tool to improve student independent learning. Further, the researcher pinpoints a lack of research in the literature in this domain area which this study fills.
Methods
The participants in this study were 124 students from two classes in advanced accounting courses and one instructor in a university setting in Taiwan. Half the students were randomly assigned as an experimental group and the remaining 62 students were assigned as a control group. One instructor taught both classes. The instructor and textbooks for both groups were identical to avoid key confounding effects on the study. None of the participants reported using concept mapping in prior classes.
Several stages were used to accomplish the purpose of the study. First, the researcher and teacher spent two months prior to the teaching of the classes discussing overall experimental design and procedures. Second, grades from a prior intermediate accounting class were combined with an accounting achievement pre-test score and evaluated in order to ensure participants had similar backgrounds in accounting. Third, the experimental group was given three hours of training on concept mapping and its rationale. The instructor then taught from the text book using teacher-generated concept maps. Students from the experimental group were asked to generate their own maps after the conclusion of a chapter. The instructor and researcher provided corrective feedback on each student map enabling the students to correct their own efforts. The students in the experimental group were able to use the modified maps as a review tool for later study. This procedure was repeated until the end of chapter six of the textbook for a total implementation period of 12 weeks. The control group was taught in a more traditional manner with the instructor giving introductory lectures and teacher-generated abstracts. Students in the control group were asked to work on individual problems to which the instructor provided corrective feedback. The identical procedure was repeated until the end of chapter six in the textbook. The implementation period was the same as the experimental group. A post-test was administered to both groups after completion of the chapters to measure learning achievement. Student attitude surveys were administered to the experimental group to measure student satisfaction of concept maps as a learning tool.
Results
T-tests were conducted to compare two factors: 1) the experimental and control groups’ scores in intermediate accounting in the two semesters preceding the study; and 2) the scores in the pre-study accounting pre-test. The differences between the two groups were not significant (t = - 0.65, p > 0.05; t = 0.89, p > 0.05) implying that both groups had similar levels of accounting knowledge and ability.
A post-test t-test was conducted to examine whether the concept mapping technique contributed to student learning achievement. Results show a significant difference (t = 2.96, p < 0.001) between the two classes. The experimental group had a mean score of 73.24 (SD = 15.314) while the control group had a mean score of 63.31 (SD = 21.561) indicating the experimental group outperformed the control group by a significant margin. A Cohen’s d was not reported.
To insure that pre-test scores did not influence the experimental effect, a one-way analysis of covariance was applied with pre-test scores as covariates and the post-test scores as dependent variables. The results attained significance (F = 8.65, p < 0.01; F = 7.99, p < 0.01) indicating that the experimental group who utilized the concept map technique had significantly higher achievement than the control group who were taught using traditional teaching methods.
The researcher also examined student responses on a 10-question Likert-style satisfaction survey to determine student attitudes toward concept mapping. Agree and Strongly Agree responses were converted into “Agree” and Disagree and Strongly Disagree responses were converted to “Disagree” statements then converted to percentages. The first four questions on the survey were designed to reveal whether concept mapping improved learning. Ninety-seven percent of the participants agreed that concept mapping aided their learning of accounting principles. Ninety-five percent of the participants agreed that concept mapping helped them to learn and think independently. Eighty-nine percent of the participants expressed the opinion that concept mapping helped them to reduce barriers to learning accounting.
The next six questions were designed to test student acceptance of concept mapping as a learning tool. Ninety-five percent of the participants indicated that concept mapping could be used as an effective teaching and learning method and easily applied to other curriculum areas. Eighty-four percent of the participants reported liking the concept mapping technique in their study of accounting. Overall, ninety percent of the participants were satisfied with using concept mapping to learn accounting. However, only fifty-eight percent of the students indicated that they “could soon adapt to concept mapping.” The researcher notes that this result indicates that probably more time is needed to train students effectively in the technique of concept mapping.
Discussion
The main purpose of this study was to examine whether concept mapping could be used to help advanced accounting students in a university setting improve learning achievement. The results of the study showed that students in the experimental group improved in their learning achievement more than the students in the control group. Chiou notes that his findings are in agreement with a number of other studies’ findings in other disciplines.
Chiou also notes that the second research area – positive student perceptions of concept mapping – also reinforced previous research. The researcher does note, however, that “nearly half the students indicated that they could not quickly adapt to the approach of concept mapping” (p. 383). While this result is reported in a number of other studies, the results from this study adds to the growing consensus that a lack of familiarity with the technique of concept mapping can be a barrier to students individually adopting concept mapping as a personal learning tool.
Chiou extends his findings to promote concept mapping as “the only approach to address both what students know and how students organize their knowledge” (p. 383) and thus “is a useful meta-learning strategy in relation to helping students ‘learn how to learn’ (p. 384). He concludes with the statement that “concept mapping is an effective meta-cognitive strategy and this study is a pioneering detailed investigation in the usefulness of concept mapping in university-level business accounting courses” (p. 385).
Critique
In general, this study employs sound methodological and statistical techniques and represents a well-thought out and controlled study. The writing is clear, appropriately formal, direct, concise, well organized, and factual. The study is well grounded in previous research and makes an important contribution to the literature. Sample size is sufficient (N = 124) to yield generalizable results. Ethical considerations seem to be at least partially addressed with student anonymity being assured in the student attitude response post-study. Confounding effects are somewhat anticipated and addressed by ensuring homogeneity of the participants’ backgrounds and abilities strengthening the validity of the experimental results. No mention is made of the students’ cultural background as a possible barrier to the generalizability of the study results.
The study could have been strengthened by a more detailed description and analysis of the Likert-style questionnaire given post-study to the experimental group. As described, Chiou grouped all affirmative responses and all negative responses into two categories and converted to percentages. The strength of these responses could have been recalibrated given a more detailed Likert response questionnaire.
Theoretical, Methodological, and Practical Implications
This study indicates that concept mapping can be an effective meta-cognitive strategy to enhance meaningful learning in accounting and other related business courses. Given the dearth of studies in this area, this study makes an important contribution to the corpus of literature. In domains that stress the incremental acquisition of knowledge (in particular math and science), concept mapping might be an effective instructional and summative tool by allowing corrective feedback during the course of instruction.
In addition, this study seems to indicate that concept mapping encourages more independent learning skills by allowing these accounting students to make their own connections between different concept areas. This change in emphasis from more traditional teaching methods seems to enhance more meaningful learning in complex domains.
Finally, concept mapping could be an effective meta-cognitive strategy in making better transitional connections between courses in a particular domain.
