Efficacy of Concept Mapping in Accomplishing Instructional Objectives in the Cognitive Domain of Social Studies Teaching

The present study aimed to investigate the efficacy of concept mapping over the traditional method in accomplishing different objectives of social studies instruction in the cognitive domain. The experimental study followed a pretest-posttest control group design. Eighty students, separated into a control group and an experimental group of 40 students each, were exposed to 20 sessions of 40-minutes long teaching interventions in the normal classroom setup. Three selected units of social studies curriculum were taught to the control group and experimental group by adopting the traditional method and concept mapping method respectively. Pre-test and post-test scores were gathered with the help of a standardized achievement test that measured the accomplishment of instructional objectives in six domains viz., knowledge, understanding, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, apart from the total achievement. The post-test scores of the control group and experimental group, based on instructional objectives, were compared by applying one way ANCOVA. The result exposed the superiority of concept mapping over the traditional method of teaching in accomplishing instructional objectives in four levels of the cognitive domain, viz., knowledge, understanding, application, and analysis, apart from total achievement. The concept mapping, however, was found no way superior to the traditional method in accomplishing the remaining two instructional objectives, viz., synthesis and evaluation.