Conceptual change with refutational maps

ABSTRACT

This study investigated how studying a refutational map, a type of argument map, affected conceptual change. Refutational maps visually display both correct and alternative conceptions. Participants (N = 120) were randomly assigned to (1) a refutational map condition, (2) a refutational text condition, and (3) a non-refutational text condition. The post-test results showed that studying the refutational map led to better performance on free recall and learning transfer measures. Specifically, participants who studied the refutational map performed significantly better than others on a free recall test, and they significantly outperformed the non-refutational text group on a short-answer transfer test. The multiple-choice test, another transfer measure, failed to detect any differences among the three groups. The research also found that individual differences in need for cognition and logical thinking ability interacted with the type of study materials. Participants scoring lower on logical thinking ability gained more from studying the refutational map.

KEYWORDS:

• Refutational maps
• refutational text
• conceptual change
• science education
• logical thinking
• need for cognition

Acknowledgement

This manuscript is derived from the first author’s thesis (Liu, 2011). Support for this research was provided by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [410-2007-1157] to John C. Nesbit.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Qing Liu http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5647-3726

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: [grant number 410-2007-1157].