Effectiveness of Using Concept Map to improve Maternity Nursing Student achievement

Abstract

Concept mapping as a cognitive tool is based on the theoretical foundation laid down by educational psychologists. The underlying basis of the theory is that meaningful human learning occurs when new knowledge is consciously and purposively linked to an existing framework of prior knowledge. Furthermore, the mind organizes information in a hierarchical top-down fashion from higher level skills to the lower level skills. While, in rote (or memorized) learning, new concepts are added to the learner's framework in an arbitrary and verbatim way, producing a weak and unstable structure that quickly degenerates. The present a quasi-experimental study was aimed to studying the effect of using of concept map on the nursing students’ achievement. All third year students subjected to the obstetric and gynecological nursing course in the first term and the second term on the academic year 2014-2015 were included 122 students in the first term (control group) and 137 students in the second term (study group). Data were collected through questionnaire tool to asses