Students’ Anxiety towards and Perception of Difficulty of some Biological Concepts under the Concept‐mapping Heuristic

Abstract

The growth of the literature on topic difficulties within the last two decades has indexed an increase in students’ aversion towards key concepts in the sciences. This study explored the possibility that the concept‐mapping strategy could be a fruitful way of reducing the anxiety levels of students as well as helping to change their attitudes towards concepts that are traditionally perceived to be difficult. Data collected from 138 pre‐degree biology students on two areas of biology‐‐ecology and genetics‐‐that are perceived to be highly difficult show that (1) those students who were exposed to the concept‐mapping strategy (experimental group; N = 63) had a significantly lower level of anxiety than the control (N=75) in ecology and genetics; (2) after treatment, the experimental group students perceived ecology to be less difficult. They also recorded a significantly lower mean score in their perception of the difficulty of genetics when compared with the control. Overall, the results showed that students’ perception of the difficulty of and anxiety toward ecology and genetics‐‐traditionally dreaded areas of biology, changed for the better as a result of engagement in concept mapping. The implications of these results for instruction and for further research are drawn.