Measuring students' success about "force" by concept mapping

This study aims to determine whether concept mapping can be used in the assessment step of teaching. The Sample consists of students studying at Gazi University Physics Teaching program and 5th year students enrolled in fall 2006 ? 2007 and 44 students enrolled in the Masters without thesis program of Education at the Physiscs Teaching program of the Gazi University?s Institute. In the study, two data collecting tools were used. One of them was concept ? mapping about ?Force and Kinds of Force? and ? Laws of Force ? and the other one was FCI (Force Concept Inventory) test. Students? Concept maps were evalualated by four different scoring techniques 1) Novak and Gowin (1984) 2) Totality 3) Lyn Roberts and Beverley Moriarty (1996) 4) Relational scoring techniques. Student scores from the FCI were out of 100. G coefficient has been calculated according to the scores from these four scoring techniques (G= 0,7). The coefficient of correlation between the scoring techniques of concept mapping and the results of FCI test has been found between the range of .16 and .32. It is assumed that the reason of the result of the correlation is due to the fact that the test measures the concepts and the concept map measures the relation between the concepts. The high result of `G? coefficient shows that concepts maps can be used as a technique of assessment. It is thought that it will be more beneficial if the technique of concept mapping is used in addition to traditional assessment techniques.