The Effect of some personal differences on the success of making a concept map

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of soma personel differences(learning styles, attitude towards science and gender) on their ability of drawing aconcept map.The samples of this study are chosen among the 7 th grade students beingeducated in Kıbrıscık Primary Boarding School in Kıbrıscık, Bolu, during the 2004-2005 educational year. Grasha?s Learning Styles was used the determine thestudentslearning styles, and science attitude scale was used to learn their attitudestoward science. The concept maps that 7 th grade students made about ekosystemwere used as Holistic Grading Scale.The data that were found as the resulth of the application were analysed usingSPSS program variance analysis (ANOVA) and t-test were used during the statisticalanalysis of data to determine the effect of each independent variable on dependentvariables or the relationship between they.According to the findings, it is determined that although there is ameaningful relatonship between the students learning styles and their success inmaking a concept map, their gender makes no meaningful difference in it. Especially,the success scores of the students who have competitive and collaborative learningstyles are higher. The attitude of the students towards science course has ameaningful effect on their success scores of making a concept maps. Students whohave a more postitive attitude towards the course ended up with more successfulconcept maps. A meaningful difference has been found between the students genderand the attitude they develop towards science course. It is found that when comparedto boys, girls have more positive attitude towards science; however, students genderhas been determined not to make any meaninful difference on their learning styles.Although female students have a more positive attitude towards sciencecourse than male students, no meaningful difference due to gender was found inmaking a concept map. In addition to this, there wasn?t any statistically meaningfuldifference between the students learning styles and the attitude they develop towardsscience. However, the attitude that students with independent collaborative andparticipant learning styles develop was proved to be more positive then the others.Keywords: concept maps, learning styles, personal differences, attitude, gender