Inclusiveness in task design

The aim of this study is to compare unstructured and semi-structured concept maps regarding students' involvement in a classroom activity and determine which of the maps are more inclusive. Further, it is aimed to find out how students perceive those maps. In other words, it is aimed to find out how active and passive students perceive unstructured and semi-structured concept maps. In this particular work, qualitative techniques were used as a data-gathering method. The sample involved 24 fifth graders. The students initially drew unstructured concept maps and, one week later, they drew semi-structured concept maps on the same topic. All the drawing activities were videotaped. After the drawing activities, a semi-structured interview was conducted with the students and all the interviews were done individually. After that, both the videotapes and interviews were transcribed and later analyzed. The results indicated that compared with unstructured concept maps, semi-structured ones were more inclusive. Similarly, both active and passive students found the semi-structured concept maps more inclusive and instructive.