Individual differences in knowledge representation and problem- solving performance in physics

Concept mapping in college-level physics was investigated. The study was carried out in three parts. First, an attempt was made to validate concept mapping as a method of evaluating student learning at the junior college level (ages 16-21). Several measures were found to be sensitive to differences in students' achievement. Second, the effectiveness of concept mapping as an instructional strategy was investigated. It was found that the strategy led to improvement in multistep problem-solving performance but not in performance on single step problems. Third, the concept maps made by experts in the field were compared with the maps made by high achieving and average achieving students to see if this is yet another way in which high performance and expertise are related. It was found that the high achieving students made maps which more nearly resembled the maps made by experts than those made by average achieving students