The effect of concept mapping on academic achievement: A meta analysis study

Concept maps are used for many purposes such as developing critical thinking skills, emphasizing hierarchical relationships, moving away from recollection, revealing reflective thinking, using knowledge in new situations, increasing student achievement, identifying deficiencies, evaluating and facilitating the production of creative knowledge (Brinkerhoff and Booth, 2013). The importance of the concept maps in education and teaching process has led many researchers to this area, which has enabled a significant academic accumulation in this area. The aim of this study is to investigate the size of the common effects by reaching the master's and doctoral theses, articles and reports investigating the effect of concept maps on academic success between 2005 and 2017 and to evaluate these studies by meta-analysis method. In this study, the effect sizes of 78 studies that examine the effect of concept maps on academic achievement and the overall effect size of these studies were analyzed. Comprehensive Meta Analysis program was used to analyze the data. In the study, interpretations were made by using the effect size index of Cohen (1988). While the effect of concept maps on academic achievement is examined; analyzes were made according to the year of study included, learning stage and course areas of the study, countries they belong to, and sample size. As a result of the heterogeneity tests performed, there was no significant difference in the year of studies, the fields of study, the countries they belong to, and the sample size, however; it was concluded that there was a significant difference in favor of high school level in terms of the educational level variable. There are three analyzes of the publication bias: Funnel Plot, Orwin Fail Safe Number and Duval / Tweedie test. In the Funnel plot, the studies were symmetrically distributed on both sides of the overall effect; according to the Orwin test, if there are 7123 studies with opposing findings, the effect size reached at the moment can be ineffective, which is impossible; according to the Duval and Tweedie test, it was concluded that one study will be provided with symmetry by adding to the left of the funnel plot and then the effect size will decrease from 1,075 to 1,038, but this decrease will not change the effect level. Therefore, it can be said that there is no publication bias in this meta-analysis. Individual studies incorporating meta-analysis have been combined and found to be heterogeneous. Therefore, necessary calculations have been made by using the random effects model in the research. As a result of the analysis, the effect of concept maps on academic achievement was calculated as d = 1,08; and therefore it was seen a large level and positive effect according to the classification of Cohen (1988). As a result of this study, it has come to the conclusion that concept maps are very effective in enhancing the academic achievement of students and must be used in the education process.