The effect of the usage of the concept map on students' achievement, retention of knowledge concerning pressure ulcers

This investigation was achieved to determine the effect of "Pressure Ulcers" course which prepared by concept maps on student's learning and permanace of learning according to experimental pattern model with pretest-posttest control group. The study group of research consisted of 135 students at Yıldırım Beyazıt University Faculty of Health Sciences of Nursing Department during the 2014-2015 academic years, 120 students (67 experimental, 53 control) in conformity with the criterias of research, attand in class and approve and adap to investigation constituted the population of the study. The data was collected by a survey form to determine students character, by an achievement test which prepareded to determine success of the students about Pressure Ulcers and questionnaire form to determine experimental students' opinions about concept maps. The Pressure Ulcers course content prepared by the researcher by literature review was transferred to the control group through expository instruction, experimental group through concept map. An achievement test developed by the resercher was applied to both experimental and control group before as pre-test, after as post test and after four weeks as permenant test. For the data evaluation of the current study; Numbers and percentages, Mann Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis H test, Independent T test and Wilcoxon test have been used. In this preliminary research it is stated that in terms of pre-test, distinction between experimental (=34±10) and control (=31.8±11.8) group was not statistically significiant (p>0.05). In terms of post-test and permenant test results indicated that students in experimental group (post-test:=78.2±12.2, permenant test:=64.1±14.1) have higher achievements (p<0.05) than those of control group (post test:=69.7±13.6, permenant test:=58.7±12.6). And, most of the experimental group studets have positive opininons concerning concept maps. Suggestions were proposed based on the result of the study.