The effect of cognitive support given by concept mapping on achievement, retention and attitude in primary science education

One of the most important factors for reaching achievement in education is realizingmeaningful learning. New knowledge without constructing is going to be forgotten and neverbe used. Concept mapping is one of the most efficient teaching tools that support meaningfullearning.The main purpose of this thesis is to support, enhance and extend the process teachingand learning by using concept maps and evaluating the effects of concept maps on students?achievements, attitudes and permanence of the new knowledge.This research was limited with 96 students who were studying at a primary school inİzmir in the first period of academic year 2005-2006. In this study skeleton and digestivesystems subjects were chosen. At the start of the study in order to bring to light student?smisconceptions on the skeleton and digestive system topics, a quantitative study was donewith 6 students. Then two groups called experimental and control groups were determinatedaccording to pre-test results. There were 48 students in the experimental group and 48students in the control group. Students in the experimental group were given cognitivesupport with concept mapping; students in the control group were studied in the traditionallearning environment. For revealing the effects of cognitive support by concept mapping post-test was applied to both groups. Scale for attitudes towards science was also applied to bothtwo groups before and after the study. For revealing the effects of concept mapping onpermanence test were applied to experimental and control group after1, 2, and 4 months endof the study.The results of this study show that the given cognitive support by using conceptmapping increases student achievement develops students? attitudes toward science andsupports permanence. The results which gained in this thesis will help to reveal theimportance of the concept maps.