Thesis Abstract

Abstract
Concept mapping is a valuable tool in education that has been shown to enhance learning and academic performance. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between concept mapping and academic performance of students in Biology in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area. The research utilized a mixed-methods approach, gathering data through concept mapping exercises, student performance assessments, and interviews with participants. Results indicated a positive correlation between students' use of concept mapping and their academic performance in Biology. Students who engaged in concept mapping activities showed a deeper understanding of the subject matter, better retention of information, and improved performance in assessments. The qualitative data from interviews supported these findings, with students expressing a preference for concept mapping as a study technique. Furthermore, the study highlighted the importance of proper training and guidance in utilizing concept mapping effectively. Students who received instructions on how to create meaningful concept maps demonstrated higher levels of academic achievement compared to those who did not. This suggests that integrating concept mapping into the curriculum, along with providing support and resources for students to develop their mapping skills, can lead to improved learning outcomes in Biology. Overall, the findings of this research support the effectiveness of concept mapping as a learning strategy for enhancing academic performance in Biology. Educators in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area and beyond can benefit from incorporating concept mapping into their teaching practices to promote a deeper understanding of complex biological concepts among students. Further research is recommended to explore the long-term effects of concept mapping on academic performance and to identify best practices for implementing this technique in the classroom.

Thesis Overview

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background to the study

Concept mapping is an instructional tool that is currently gaining popularity in the field of science education. It is a product of recent advances in cognitive science and the new philosophy of science. Contemporary perspectives of cognitive psychologists and the new learning as an active internal process of construction where the learner’s prior knowledge plays a significant role in further conceptual learning (Ausubel, 1968; Novak 1991). These educators consider learners to be architects of their knowledge for they construct their own idiosyncratic meanings of concepts and natural phenomena. They consider learning, therefore to be more than verbatim repetition of what has been presented to the learner or as a change in behaviour They view learning as a process of conceptual change.

The new philosophers of science reject the traditional cumulative view of scientific knowledge and replace it with a conceptual change view as reflected in the works of Kuhn (1970), and Lakatos (1970), among others. In general, it is this newer idea of cognitive psychologists with constructivist epistemological views and the new philosophers of science that formed the conertoul of concept mapping. However, it is the Ausubel’s (2963, 1968) and Ausubel, Novak and Hanesian’s (1978) cognitive assimilation (subsumption) theory that formed the theoretical foundation of concept mapping.

Concept mapping is a process of constructing concept maps. It involves mapping out logical relationships among concepts in a hierarchical order, such that the most general concepts are at the top of the map. A concept map, according to Novak and Godwin (1984), is a schematic advice for representing a set of concept mapping embedded in a frame work of propositions. It is a two-dimensional hierarchical diagram that illustrates the interconnections between and among individual concepts. Concept maps provide a visual road map showing the pathways that we may take to construct meanings of concepts and propositions. It is both a meta-learning and meta-knowledge tool according to Novak and Godwin (1984).

1.2   Purpose of Study

This study aims at investigating concept mapping and academic performance of students in Biology. The study seeks to:

• Establish whether concept mapping has any effect on students’ performance in Biology.
• To find out gender differences in performance in Biology when students are exposed to concept mapping method.

1.3   Statement of the problem

Studies in concept mapping in Nigeria are scanty. Moreover, those available (Abayomi, 1988, Esiobu & Soyibo, 1995) have looked at concept mapping only in terms of achievement on the part of the learners generally. This researcher is not aware of any study that has looked at gender difference when concept mapping is used as an instructional strategy. The problem of this study can therefore be summarized in the following questions. To what extent does concept mapping determine the academic performance of students in Biology in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area? Is the performance of learners exposed to instruction using concept mapping gender-biased?