Concept Maps in Teaching Physics Concepts Applied

to Engineering Education: An explorative Study at the

Middle East College, Sultanate of Oman.

R.D. Senthilkumar,
Department of Mathematics and Applied Sciences,
Middle East College,
Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
senthil@mec.edu.om

Abstract—An attempt has been made to study the effectiveness of
concept maps in physics education through quasi-experimental
design. The post-test is used as a measuring instrument and the post-
test scores are statistically analysed. The results of Levene’s test and
t-test reveal that mean of post–test scores of the experimental and
control groups are statistically significant. This confirms the
Alternate Hypothesis that students who studied using concept maps
(experimental group) attained higher learning compared to the
students who did not use the concept maps (control group). The
learner achievement score reveals that 17.7 % higher learning has
been attained by experimental group compared with control group.
Questionnaires were used to know the students perceptions on the
use of concept maps. The results of questionnaire analysis showed
that students find concept maps are useful in teaching and learning.
Further details of this study are discussed in the article.
Keywords—Technology enhanced learning; concept maps;
physics teaching; engineering education;
I. INTRODUCTION
It is important for engineering students to have thorough
knowledge and deep understanding of physics. Unfortunately,
misconceptions or lack of understanding regarding physics is
quite common among students [1]. Hence, suitable effective
methods must be used in teaching and learning of physics. Many
educators have reported that use of concept maps in the teaching
and learning process gives good results in developing
understanding of concepts in general [1–6].
Concept maps are 2-dimentional and inter-linked diagrams
that illustrate organized knowledge [7]. They are drawn in a
graphical form by representing the relationships between
concepts, ideas, words or images, based on the meta-learning
strategy [8]. Concept maps have been extensively used to help
students in education at various levels by developing new
prepositions that are naturally integrated into students’ cognitive
structure [9-10].
Okebukola and Jegede [11] said that use of concept maps in
teaching and learning positively influences the students’
academic performance and progress. Luchembe et al. [4] found
from their study that effective use of concept map based teaching
in physics classrooms increases students’ learning. The impact
of concept maps in physics teaching and learning were also
investigated by [12]. Haughwitz [13] reported that concept
maps develop cognitive structure when students create them
either individually or in collaboratively in groups. Concept
maps can be used as an evaluation tool of learning, study
strategy, content presentation, and learning resource, among
others. Austin and Shone [14] have found that concept maps are
useful and suitable to evaluate the relationship between the
physics concepts required for problem solving.
Student’s understanding of various conceptual topics in the
introductory physics classes offered to the engineering students
at the Middle East College (MEC), Oman is not satisfactory.
This is mainly due to the lack of self-motivation in learning.
Hence, an attempt has been made to enhance student’s level of
understanding by using concept maps in physics teaching and
learning. Also the effectiveness of concept maps in physics
learning by finding the amount of learning achieved among the
first year engineering degree students at MEC is studied and the
results are discussed in this article.
II. OBJECTIVES
The primary objective of this study is to find the
effectiveness of concepts maps in teaching and learning of
physics concepts to the first year engineering students by
experimentally finding the amount of learning achieved by
using concept maps. Thus, the following research questions
guide this study:
• What is the difference in learning between the
experimental group which does use concept maps and the
control group that does not use concept maps?
• What are the students’ perceptions on the usefulness of
concept maps in teaching and learning?
A. Hypotheses:
The working hypotheses tested for the first research question
is as follows:
Null Hypothesis (H0): There is no difference in learning
attained by the group of students’ who used concept maps
(called Experimental Group, E.G.) compared to the students’
group without using concept maps (called Control Group, C.G).

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 Alternative Hypothesis (Ha): There is a difference in
learning attained by the group of students’ who used concept
maps (E.G.) compared to the students’ group without using
concept maps (C.G).
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Research Model
In this study, a quasi-experimental design was used to
quantify the effectiveness of concept mapping on students’
academic progression. Two sessions of first year engineering
students pursuing physics module were formed into two groups,
namely Experimental Group (E.G) and Control Group (C.G).
Total 27 students who had enrolled in Session A is assigned as
E.G and the 35 students registered in Session B is assigned as
C.G. Concept mapping instructional strategy was used for the
students of E.G and the traditional teaching methods were used
for the students of C.G. An example of a conceptual map
collaboratively prepared by students is shown in Fig. 1. A post-
test was used as a measuring instrument to quantify the
student’s conceptual learning.
B. Experiment and Sample
Two classes of physics students (total 62) of first year
Electronics and Communication Engineering course offered by
MEC, Oman are included in this study, which was conducted
during the spring semester 2016 (March – June 2016). These
two classes were formed into two groups, namely E.G with 27
students and C.G with 35 students. In order to minimize the
effect of the tutor’s teaching skills as a variable, the same tutor
taught both groups of students. Tutor used a teaching
methodology by adopting both traditional resources and other
digital resources (videos and interactive simulations) for the
control group. In addition to the digital resources, the
interlinked concept maps with the software program
CmapTools was used for teaching the experimental group. This
software package allows to construct concept maps both
individually and collaboratively as complete models of
knowledge of topics and can be used as a teaching tool. It
facilitates users to add resources, such as texts, tables, images,
and videos, thereby promoting meaningful, active and
participatory learning. Both the groups were taught for 2 hours
per week over a period of 10 weeks. A post-test was
administered during week 11 for both E.G and C.G and the
results are analyzed. After the test, data was collected through
questionnaire from the students of E.G. to know the students’
perceptions on the usefulness of concept maps in teaching and
learning.
Fig. 1. Example of a conceptual map used in this study
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C. Statistical Analysis
The post-test scores are subjected to a descriptive statistical
analysis to verify the normality of their distribution. Research
hypotheses were tested by analysing the post-test scores by
Independent Samples Test. Data collected through
questionnaire were subjected for the Reliability test based on
the Cronbach alpha method. These analyses are carried out
using the IBM SPSS package.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for the post-test
scores obtained by students in this study along with the
difference in mean scores between the experimental and control
groups ( ( )).
TABLE I. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF THE POST-TEST RESULTS OF E.G.
AND C.G
Parameters Experimental Control Group
Group (E.G) (C.G)
No. of students 27 35
Mean Score (%) 84.43 66.67
Std. Deviation 2.30 7.65
Std. error of the mean 0.44 1.29
( ) 84.43 – 66.67 = 17.71 %
Table II presents the results of Shapiro-Wilk and
Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests to verify the normal distribution of
the sample collected from the post-test scores. The p-values
(significance) of both experimental and control groups are
considerably greater than 0.05 in both tests which reveal that
scores of E.G. and C.G are normally distributed.
Table I demonstrates that the mean scores of E.G and C.G
are different and E.G is greater than C.G which supports the
Alternative Hypothesis: “There is a difference in learning
attained by the students of E.G compared to the students of
C.G”. To verify the hypothesis further, the data was subjected
to the Independent Samples Test.
Table III represents the Levene’s test result which is in the
expected direction and significant as p < 0.05. This reveals that
there is a significant changes in the mean of post-test scores of
E.G and C.G. Further, the two-tailed p-value from the t-test is
0.001 (p < 0.05). This indicates that the acceptance of
Alternative Hypothesis and the difference in mean scores of the
E.G and C.G are statistically significant (i.e. not because of
chance but due to the concept map based teaching strategy
used).
The results of all statistical analyses demonstrate the
effectiveness of the use of concept maps in physics teaching. It
is evident that concept maps based teaching strategy greatly
improves the students’ learning at the Middle East College. This
finding is matching with the results of similar studies [4-6]
conducted in other parts of world.
Students’ perceptions on the usefulness of concept maps in
teaching and learning is determined by the questionnaire
analysis. Students were asked to indicate their opinion on a 5-
point Likert scale: Strongly disagree = 1; Disagree = 2; Neutral
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 TABLE II. NORMALITY TEST RESULTS V. CONCLUSION
Group Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test Shapiro-Wilk Test The effectiveness of concept maps in teaching and learning
Statistic Sig. Statistic Sig. of physics by determining the amount of learning attained by
E.G 0.113 0.200 0.959 0.355 the first year engineering degree students at the Middle East
C.G 0.132 0.200 0.926 0.054 College, Oman is studied. The results confirm the Alternative
= 3; Agree = 4; Strongly Agree = 5. This helped to determine Hypothesis that there is a difference in learning attained by the
the degree of agreement with the statements related to the use of group of students who used concept maps compared to those
concept maps. The statements included in the questionnaire are who do not. It is found that the use of concept maps in teaching
given below: and learning increased the learning by 17.71 percentage points.
All results in this study are consistent with other studies who
Q1. Concept map enhanced my learning skills by organizing
what I learnt. claim that concept maps are a useful cognitive strategy for the
deep acquisition of information by discovering the meaning of
Q2. Through concept maps I acquired thorough knowledge concepts being learned. This study also reveals the students’
and deep understanding of topics learnt. perception on the use of concept maps in their learning.
Q3. I’m interested to prepare concept maps when I learn new Students indicated that they used concept maps for revising
topics. during the independent and collaborative learning. Overall, the
present study confirms that concept maps are an effective tool
Q4. I revised topics easily using concept maps. for physics teaching and learning. Further research will be
Q5. Concept maps supported in developing my reasoning continued on the effective use of concept maps as an evaluation
and problem solving skills tool of physics learning at the Middle East College, Oman.
Q6. Concept maps helped me to think deeply on topics while
learning. Usefulness of Concept Maps - An anaysis through
Q7. Concept maps made me to store and recall information Questionnaire
more efficiently.
Likert Scale (in average)

4.77 4.81 4.81

Q8. I felt comfortable preparing and writing test. 4.73 4.77
4.62
Q9. Concept maps support both independent and 4.46
collaborative learning 4.32 4.31 4.27
Q10. I understand and enjoyed constructing concept maps
The questionnaire analysis report is given in Fig.2 which
shows that Likert scale values of all statements is almost closer Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10
to 5 (Strongly Agree). This indicates that students have a
Fig. 2. Questionnaire analysis report on the usefulness of concept maps
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TABLE III. SUMMARY OF INDEPENDENT SAMPLE TEST

Levene's Test for

Equality of t-test for Equality of Means
Variances
Sig. Mean Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval of the
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Lower Upper

Equal variances
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Post test assumed
Score Equal variances not
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assumed

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