AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Such text interpretation requires a higher level of independent
consideration of a student, and therefore he/she must use
information from the given material but also from other sources.
The conclusion may be that although the girls managed to list
more concepts, their sorting into hierarchies was more
challenging. This could be the result of a lower level of
understanding of the links among concepts, or of not
understanding the meaning and content of individual concepts.
For a student to be able to create a hierarchy and identify the
most important links, he/she needs to have the highest
operational level of knowledge: evaluation and synthesis.
Further, the mutually related parameters - quality of hierarchies
(KH) and consistency (KONZ) were examined. The quality of
hierarchy, in our context, represents the level at which the
concepts are connected into a hierarchy: their mutual links and
connections, as well as connections with key concepts.
Consistency represents the quality of a concept map created by a
student. In both parameters of operationalization the girls scored
higher, i.e. their assessment was better.
The mental representations of the girls as captured through
concept maps represented the curriculum material in a
comprehensive way, while the maps of the boys more often only
captured elementary information about the material. The girls’
concept maps summarized not only the current teaching material,
but also material from the previous thematic areas. Therefore,
the overall quality of concept maps created by the girls
(considering individual criteria of a given parameter) was at
higher level.
New knowledge is meaningful for a student only when it is
incorporated into previously existing knowledge structures. The
depth and scope of adoption of a concept is an important factor.
This process was more prevalent in girls in our research.
Students differentiate based not only on the quantity, character
of the knowledge and information they bring to school, but also
on how they receive the new knowledge and incorporate it into
the knowledge structures. Equally, it is important to consider the
uniqueness of understanding the teaching material. From the
teacher’s perspective it implies a need to diagnose what creates
the basis of a student’s knowledge. Also, the teacher should
respect student’s independent perspective on the curriculum
material. The material itself plays a significant role in the
process: the content and stimulation of the text, and its scope and
complexity from the student’s perspective.
If the teacher accepts the individual differences among students
that can manifest themselves through their learning style and use
of strategies for material comprehension, and respects and knows
the level of students’ preconcepts, it can be said that such a
teacher positively supports the perception of students’ skills. Our
research did not find statistically significant differences between
the two sexes, however the teacher should strive to encourage
the thinking of each student, confrontation of different
interpretations, and the drawing of conclusions.
4 Conclusion
This research aimed at analysing and reviewing the ability of
students to capture mental representations of content in certain
curriculum material through concept mapping with respect to
their gender. The research offers interesting findings for
pedagogical practice, since concept maps seem to be a suitable
method for identifying the level of knowledge in students.
Therefore, they can be used as a reflective tool for a teacher or a
self-reflective tool for students.
Students must be taught how to independently create their own
mental representation of a certain thematic area, or of
information, that has a stable place in their knowledge structure.
Each person is unique, with an individual learning style and
unique way of processing information. The teacher as organizer
of instruction should take those factors into consideration
regardless of whether students are boys or girls.
We believe it is important to enable students to use their own
ways of explaining, interpreting and collecting facts, to work
with different types of information of their choice, compare and
analyze acquired knowledge, and encourage them to reflect
critically on their own activities.
It is important that each student understand a given subject, is
able to link it with acquired knowledge from other study areas,
work with it, and apply it in everyday life. If a teacher
demonstrates to the students how to structure their knowledge
simply, it will have a positive impact not only on the quality of
the knowledge, but also on their attitude towards learning.
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Primary Paper Section: A
Secondary Paper Section: AM
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