Concept Mapping

Dr. Idna M. Corbett

West Chester University
Ausubel’s Theory
 David Ausubel is a psychologist who advanced a theory which
contrasted meaningful learning from rote learning.
 Ausubel’s theory is involved with how individuals learn large
amounts of “meaningful” material from verbal/textual lessons in
school, as opposed to theories of learning developed in laboratories.
 Ausubel’s subsumption theory contends that “the most important
single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows”
(Ausubel, 1968).
 According to Ausubel, a primary process in learning is subsumption
in which new material is related to relevant ideas in the existing
cognitive structures.
 Ausubel proposes an instructional mode using advance organizers.
He emphasizes that advance organizers are different from
overviews and summaries which simply emphasize key ideas and
details in an arbitrary manner. Organizers act as a “subsuming
bridge” (Ausubel, 1963) between new learning material and existing
related ideas.

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Meaningful Learning Contrasted
with Rote Learning
 Rote Learning
 Arbitrary, verbatim, non-substantive incorporation of
new knowledge into cognitive structure.
 No effort to integrate new knowledge with existing
concepts in cognitive structure.
 Learning not related to experience with events or
objects.
 No affective commitment to relate new knowledge to
prior learning.

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 Meaningful Learning
 Non-arbitrary, non-verbatim, substantive incorporation
of new knowledge into cognitive structure.
 Deliberate effort to link new knowledge with higher
order concepts in cognitive structure
 Learning related to experiences with events or
objects.
 Affective commitment to relate new knowledge to
prior learning.

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Novak’s Concept Mapping
Technique
 The concept mapping technique was developed by
Joseph D. Novak at Cornell University.
 Novak concluded that "Meaningful learning involves the
assimilation of new concepts and propositions into
existing cognitive structures".
 Novak’s work was based on the theories of Ausubel.
 Novak and Gowan (1984) have developed a theory of
instruction that is based on Ausubel's meaningful
learning principles that incorporates "concept maps" to
represent meaningful relationships between concepts
and propositions.

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 A cognitive map is a “kind of visual road map
showing some of the pathways we may take to
connect meanings of concepts.”
 According to Novak and Gowan, concept maps
should be hierarchical.
 The more general, more inclusive concepts
should be at the top of the map, and the more
specific, less inclusive concepts at the bottom of
the map.

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What is concept mapping?
 Concept mapping is a technique for
representing knowledge in graphs.
 Knowledge graphs are networks of
concepts.
 Networks consist of nodes and links.
 Nodes represent concepts and links
represent the relations between concepts.

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 Concepts and links are labeled.
 Links can be non-, uni- or bi-directional.
 Concepts and links may be categorized.
They can be
 simply associative,
 Specified, or
 divided in categories such as causal or
temporal relations.

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Purposes of Concept Mapping
 to generate ideas (brain storming, etc.)
 to design a complex structure (long texts,
hypermedia, large web sites, etc.)
 to communicate complex ideas
 to aid learning by explicitly integrating new and
old knowledge
 to assess understanding or diagnose
misunderstanding

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Concept mapping as a student
learning tool
 To learn course material
 Students can use concept maps to take class notes.
 Students can use concept maps to organize class notes or
course material.
 To integrate course content
 Students can use concept maps to connect material learned
throughout the semester.
 To integrate material across different courses
 Often students fail to see the relationship between different
classes that they have taken.
 Concept mapping can foster a student's understanding of how
different courses relate if they map the prominent concepts from
different courses that they have taken (e.g. compose one map of
terms from a statistics class and a research design class).
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 To assess their own learning. Concept maps can be
used to assess changes and growth in the students'
conceptual understanding as a result of instruction
received in the course.
 Learning can be evaluated before a course begins (to evaluate
students' prior knowledge), during the semester (to evaluate
changes in the students' knowledge), and/or at the end of the
semester (to evaluate the students' knowledge after all course
material has been covered).
 Concept maps can be used to evaluate changes in learning over
time and to evaluate end of course knowledge.
 A concept map can provide feedback to the student so
that s/he can check her/his understanding of the material
to see if any connections are missing.

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1. Identify the important terms or concepts that
you want to include on your map
 There are three strategies to identify important
concepts to include concepts on a concept map:
 An instructor generated list and students are not
permitted to add their own concepts
 An instructor generated list but the students are
allowed to add their own concepts to the list
 An entirely student-generated list of concepts on a
particular subject
 For novice concept mappers, it is probably best
to have the terms provided.
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2. Arrange concepts in a pattern that best
represents the information

 One can choose to use a hierarchical or non-

hierarchical structure.
 The use of hierarchical or non-hierarchical maps
may have different benefits in terms of pedagogy
and assessment.
 Novice mappers may want to create their
concept maps using post-it notes so that they
can easily change the location of any concept
before a final version is constructed.

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3. Use circles or ovals to enclose an important
term or concept within the topic

 Each circle or oval should enclose only one term

or concept. However, terms can be more than
one word.

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4. Use straight lines with arrows (single or
double-headed) to link terms that are related

 Each line should link only two concepts.

 However, there is no limit to the number of links
stemming from any one term.
 Pay close attention to the direction of the
arrowheads on the linking lines when labeling
them.
 Each concept is defined by its relation to other
concepts within the topic. Relations include:
superset, subset, attribute, part-whole.

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5. Use a word or phrase of words as labels
along the lines to designate the relationship
between two connected terms
 Each line should have a label that describes the
relationship between the two terms it connects.
 Example:
relationship
Important link
term

relationship
link Important
term
feedback
loop link
Important mutual
term relationship
Important
link
mutual term
relationship
link

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Examples of concept maps

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How to make concept mapping a
fruitful exercise
 Students need to producing maps; the more they do it, the
better they’ll understand the process.
 Begin with a simple topic, using a small number of concepts.
 Work through example(s) with the group, modifying the map
where necessary – using post-it notes can help to develop
confidence and facilitates changes.
 Emphasize importance of thinking about all possible links.
 Emphasize importance of writing down the nature of the links.
 Emphasize that there is no single “correct” answer; often more
than one appropriate link.
 Emphasize importance of using arrows and their direction in
describing the proposition.

From http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~johnson/misconceptions/ce/learn/concept_map.htm
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References
 Ausubel, David P. (1968). Educational Psychology, A Cognitive View. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Ausubel, David P. (1967). Learning Theory and classroom
Practice. Ontario: The Ontario Institute For Studies In Education.
 Ausubel, David P. (1963). The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal Learning. New York:
Grune & Stratton.Angelo, T. A. and Cross, K. P. Classroom Assessment Techniques,
A Handbook for College Teachers (2nd ed., p. 197). Jossey-Bass, San Francisco,
1993.
 Jonassen, D.H., Beissneer K., and Yacci, M.A. (1993) Structural Knowledge:
Techniques for Conveying, Assessing, and Acquiring Structural Knowledge. Hillsdale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
 Novak, J.D. (1991) "Clarify with Concept Maps: A tool for students and teachers
alike," The Science Teacher, 58 (7), pp. 45-49.
 http://cmap.coginst.uwf.edu/info/
 http://users.edte.utwente.nl/lanzing/cm_home.htm
 http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7ejmargeru/conceptmap/types.htm
 Use of concept maps in teaching:
http://www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/~johnson/misconceptions/concept_map/cmapguid.html

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