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• Concept map has positive effects in student's critical thinking and understanding. • Quantitative analysis of concept map and open-ended exam papers in nursing education. • Concept map has comparable results with traditional assessments. This study's aim is to investigate the necessity and advantages of the use of concept map as an assessment tool in nursing education. Concept maps have been used extensively aiming mainly at effective understanding, linking together concepts and evaluating new knowledge. A class of second-year nursing degree undergraduate students (N = 32) in Greece participated in this pilot study. Concept map and open-ended exam papers were used. Quantitative statistical analysis of the concept map and open-ended exam grades was conducted. Statistical tests were used to compare all pairs of both types of papers. For the concept map papers, two different grading methods were employed to evaluate their effectiveness. The obtained results indicated that the concept map exam type provided similar scores when compared to the open-ended exam, while the grading efficiency is higher. Moreover, for the concept map exam paper, both grading methods can be applied interchangeably to provide similar scores for the students. The concept map can be a trusted assessment tool for identifying the nursing students' gaps in knowledge and comprehension, in comparison to the open-ended exam type. Nursing educators are encouraged to note the tools strengths and use it according to courses' requirements. Not applicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how the use of concept mapping, with and without technology support, assists students in learning complex concepts to which they may have had limited previous exposure. Students were engaged in a group-based concept mapping activity, wherein they created two concept maps over the course of several weeks in a large lecture class. A quasi-experimental design was used in which students were randomly assigned to groups of three, and groups were randomly assigned to concept mapping condition: (a) using pencil/paper followed by using an iPad application or (b) using an iPad app followed by using pencil/paper. Concept maps were scored for complexity (correctness and elaborateness), and scores were compared within group and between groups across conditions (pencil/paper vs. iPad app). Results showed that concept maps did not differ in quality between conditions or across time. Moreover, there was no significant difference between examination scores of the students. Finally, content analysis was conducted on students’ written evaluations of the pros and cons of concept mapping using pencil/paper and using the iPad app. Student evaluations indicated both pros and cons for each concept mapping condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, to handle the problem of the quick evolution of cyber-security attacks, we developed the iMonsters board game and proposed the attack and defense knowledge self-evolving algorithm. Three versions of the iMonsters were launched in 2013, 2017, and 2019, respectively. Accordingly, the cyber-security ontology can be refined by the ontology fusion-or-splitting procedure for the newly collected cyber-security incidents, as well as the roles and rules of the iMonsters can be refined by the gaming portfolio mining procedure for the collected portfolio. Furthermore, we conducted game-based learning (GBL), a quasi-experiment of pre/post-testing, and concept map testing using the iMonsters board game in a children's summer camp. The experimental results indicate that the students can acquire up-to-date cyber-security knowledge with the iMonsters better than students who learn in a traditional classroom setting, and the students' satisfaction with acquiring cyber-security knowledge with the instructional design of the iMonsters is better compared with learning in a traditional classroom setting. Satisfaction with the new version has continuously increased. Besides, the results of the in-depth interviews show that the new version was easier to learn. Thus, we may conclude that using the self-evolving iMonsters can improve learning effectiveness and participation in GBL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Defining Issues Test 2 (DIT-2) and Engineering Ethical Reasoning Instrument (EERI) are designed to measure ethical reasoning of general (DIT-2) and engineering-student (EERI) populations. These tools—and the DIT-2 especially—have gained wide usage for assessing the ethical reasoning of undergraduate students. This paper reports on a research study in which the ethical reasoning of first-year undergraduate engineering students at multiple universities was assessed with both of these tools. In addition to these two instruments, students were also asked to create personal concept maps of the phrase “ethical decision-making.” It was hypothesized that students whose instrument scores reflected more postconventional levels of moral development and more sophisticated ethical reasoning skills would likewise have richer, more detailed concept maps of ethical decision-making, reflecting their deeper levels of understanding of this topic and the complex of related concepts. In fact, there was no significant correlation between the instrument scores and concept map scoring, suggesting that the way first-year students conceptualize ethical decision making does not predict the way they behave when performing scenario-based ethical reasoning (perhaps more situated). This disparity indicates a need to more precisely quantify engineering ethical reasoning and decision making, if we wish to inform assessment outcomes using the results of such quantitative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and evaluates the performance of a semi-automatic authoring tool (SAAT) for knowledge extraction in the AC&NL Tutor, highlighting its strengths and weaknesses. We assessed the accuracy of automatic annotation tasks (Part-of-Speech tagging, Name Entity Recognition, Dependency parsing, and Coreference Resolution) performed on a dataset of 160 sentences from unstructured Wikipedia text on a computer. We compared the automatic annotations to the gold standard, created after human post-editing and validation. Human-error analysis included 3769 words, 582 subsentences, 1129 questions, 917 propositions, 1020 concepts, and 667 relations. It resulted in the error type classification and the set of custom rules further used for automatic error identification and correction. The results showed that an average of 68.7% of the error corrections referred to CoreNLP performance and 31.3% to the SAAT extraction algorithms. Our main contributions include an integrated approach to the comprehensive pre-processing of the text, knowledge extraction and visualization; the consolidated evaluation of natural language processing tasks and knowledge extraction output (sentences, subsentences, questions, concept maps) and the newly developed reference dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a software-aided methodology for content analysis by implementing the Leximancer software package, which can convert plain texts into conceptual networks that show how the prevalent concepts are linked with each other. The generated concept maps are associative networks of meaning related to the topics elaborated in the analyzed documents and reflect the creators' core mental representations. The applicability of Leximancer is demonstrated in an education research context, probing university students' epistemological beliefs, where a qualitative semantic analysis could be applied by inspecting and interpreting the portrayed relationships among concepts. In addition, concept-map-generating matrices, ensuing from the previous step, are introduced to another specialized software, Gephi, and further network analysis is performed using quantitative measures of centrality, such as degree, betweenness and closeness. Besides illustrating the method of this semantic analysis of textual data and deliberating the advances of digital innovations, the paper discusses theoretical issues underpinning the network analysis, which are related to the complexity theory framework, while building bridges between qualitative and quantitative traditional approaches in educational research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In educational, social or organizational studies, open-ended concept maps are used as an instrument to collect data about and analyze individuals' conceptual knowledge. Open-ended concept map studies devoted to knowledge and learning apply a variety of methods of analysis. This literature review systematically summarizes the various ways in which open-ended concept maps have been applied in previous studies of knowledge and learning. This paper describes three major aspects of these studies: what methods of analysis were used, what concept map characteristics were considered, and what conclusions about individuals' knowledge or understanding were drawn. Twenty-five studies that used open-ended concept maps as a research instrument were found eligible for inclusion. In addition, the paper examines associations between the three aspects of the studies and provides guidelines for methodological coherence in the process of such analysis. This review underscores the importance of expatiating on choices made concerning these aspects. The transparency provided by this method of working will contribute to the imitable application of open-ended concept maps as a research tool and foster more informed choices in future open-ended concept map studies." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an approach that articulates methods characterized as soft and hard Operational Research. This approach is known in the literature as Multimethodology, Hybrid Modeling, or Mixing Methods. As a Multi‐Paradigm Hybrid Study, the present research provides an interface between the qualitative and quantitative modeling of the problem addressed. In this way, it facilitates the engagement of managers with analysts in the search for solutions to problems. The applied objective is to improve the performance of production processes at a prosthetics and orthotics factory located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It applies a multimethodology to support evaluation and intervention using knowledge mapping and a discrete‐event simulation model. Lessons learned from integrated workshops enabled the devising of an alternative improvement scenario for orthotics manufacturing. Theoretical results are validated through effective intervention, providing an increase in production capacity and reduction of the manufacturing lead time. This was made possible through the understanding and engagement of stakeholders during the modeling process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, automated essay evaluation (AEE) systems play an important role in evaluating essays and have been successfully used in large-scale writing assessments. However, existing AEE systems mostly focus on grammar or shallow content measurements rather than higher-order traits such as ideas. This paper proposes a new formulation of graph-based features for concept maps using word embeddings to evaluate the quality of ideas for Chinese compositions. The concept map derived from the student's composition is composed of the concepts appearing in the essay and the co-occurrence relationship between the concepts. By utilizing real compositions written by eighth-grade students from a large-scale assessment, the scoring accuracy of the computer evaluation system (named AECC-I: Automated Evaluation for Chinese Compositions—Ideas) is higher than the baselines. The results indicate that the proposed method deepens the construct-relevant coverage of automatic ideas evaluation in compositions and that it can provide constructive feedback for students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the application of concept mapping in teaching mathematics at the primary level of education (ISCED 1), as well as the experimental verification of its qualitative contribution to the process of education. The authors present results obtained in a sample survey aimed at monitoring possibilities of influencing pupils' relationship to teaching and mastery of mathematics using digital concept maps within the process of pedagogical intervention. The authors tested the degree to which digital concept maps influence changes in the pupils' opinions and attitudes to mathematics (subject popularity, interest in the subject, easiness of understanding, fear and apprehension of mathematics) while explaining and fixating the curriculum of selected mathematics topics in the third grade of a primary school. The results of the experiment did not confirm that teaching supported by concept maps contributes to reducing pupils' negative attitudes towards subjects, particularly in mathematics at the primary level (ISCED 1). Due to the pedagogical intervention of concept mapping, no statistically significant changes occurred in the pupils' attitudes to the observed factors of mathematics. However, the authors have come up with research findings that may be notable in the field of branch didactics of mathematics and digital technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concept mapping is a powerful instructional technique that enables students to visualize connections and relationships among different concepts. It is also widely regarded as one of the most effective teaching and learning tools for knowledge organization, representation, and elicitation. This exploratory study focuses on applying the concept mapping technique to promote and foster active learning in engineering dynamics - a high-enrollment, high-impact, and foundational undergraduate engineering course that nearly all students in mechanical, aerospace, civil, biological, and biomedical engineering programs are required to take. This paper describes how the concept mapping technique was implemented in an engineering dynamics course taught by the author of this paper. Throughout the 16-week semester, students learn eight topics in dynamics - Topic 1: Kinematics of a particle; Topic 2: Kinetics of a particle: force and acceleration, and so on. Students were asked to develop their own concept maps after each topic was taught. By the end of the semester, each student had developed eight concept maps covering eight topics in dynamics. Four example concept maps that were developed by students are provided in the paper. An end-of-the-semester questionnaire survey was administrated to solicit students' feedback on their experiences with concept mapping activities. Representative student comments and recommendations are presented in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the different sequence generation techniques for learning, which are applied to a broad category of personalized learning experiences. The papers have been classified using different attributes, such as the techniques used for sequence generation, attributes used for sequence generation; whether the learner is profiled automatically or manually; and whether the path generated is dynamic or static. Design/methodology/approach: The search for terms learning sequence generation and E-learning produced thousands of results. The results were filtered, and a few questions were answered before including them in the review. Papers published only after 2005 were included in the review. Findings: The findings of the paper were: most of the systems generated non-adaptive paths. Systems asked the learners to manually enter their attributes. The systems used one or a maximum of two learner attributes for path generation. Originality/value: The review pointed out the importance and benefits of learning sequence generation systems. The problems in existing systems and future areas of research were identified which will help future researchers to pursue research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper puts forth a vision and an architecture for a community knowledge evolution system. We propose augmenting a multimedia document repository (digital library) with innovative knowledge evolution support, including computer-mediated communications, community process support, decision support, advanced hypermedia features, and conceptual knowledge structures. These tools, and the techniques developed around them, would enable members of a virtual community to learn from, contribute to, and collectively build upon the community's knowledge and improve many member tasks. The resulting Collaborative Knowledge Evolution Support System (CKESS) would provide an enhanced digital library infrastructure serving as an ever-evolving repository of the community's knowledge, which members would actively use in everyday tasks and regularly update. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Creating concept maps can help students overcome challenges of accurate knowledge monitoring and thus foster learning. However, students' knowledge often contains gaps and misconceptions, even after concept map creation. Theoretically, students could benefit from additional support, but it is unclear whether this might also be the case for (more practical‐oriented) secondary vocational students. Objectives: This study investigated whether the effectiveness of concept maps for learning could be improved by providing students with expert examples and reflection prompts in addition to their self‐generated concept maps. Methods: First‐year secondary vocational students (N = 91, Mage = 17.3 years) participated in this study, which utilized a pretest‐intervention‐posttest design. Regarding the intervention, students worked in two successive online learning environments, in which they had to present their knowledge in concept maps. After creation, students' concept maps were, depending on condition, supplemented with (1) an expert example with comparative feedback (a combined concept map) and related reflection prompts, (2) the combined concept map only, or (3) no combined concept map and no prompts. Results and Conclusions: Analyses based on students' domain knowledge demonstrate that students significantly increased their knowledge in all conditions. Data indicate that there was no significant difference in knowledge gain between conditions. Further analysis showed that students in the experimental conditions demonstrated higher learning gains if they consulted the combined concept map more often than their peers. Implications: Access to an example in addition to students' self‐generated concept maps seems promising in fostering their knowledge acquisition. However, secondary vocational students might need additional ways of support to guarantee higher learning gains. Avenues to increase the effectiveness of support are discussed. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter: Creating a concept map can be an effective means to promote student learning by facilitating their knowledge monitoring.Students' knowledge often contains gaps and misconceptions, even after concept map creation.There is evidence that feedback is needed to realize an effect on students' learning. What is the paper adding to this: Innovative implementation of concept map feedback in a self‐directed online learning environment.Exploration of the added value of support to process concept map feedback.Focus on a generally overlooked and unique target group: secondary vocational students. What are the implications of study findings for practitioners: The adopted unique implementation of concept map feedback seems promising for increasing students' learning.When designing support for secondary vocational students it is necessary to take the unique characteristics of these learners into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concept mapping is a powerful instructional technique that enables students to visualize connections and relationships among different concepts. It is also widely regarded as one of the most effective teaching and learning tools for knowledge organization, representation, and elicitation. This exploratory study focuses on applying the concept mapping technique to promote and foster active learning in engineering dynamics - a high-enrollment, high-impact, and foundational undergraduate engineering course that nearly all students in mechanical, aerospace, civil, biological, and biomedical engineering programs are required to take. This paper describes how the concept mapping technique was implemented in an engineering dynamics course taught by the author of this paper. Throughout the 16-week semester, students learn eight topics in dynamics - Topic 1: Kinematics of a particle; Topic 2: Kinetics of a particle: force and acceleration, and so on. Students were asked to develop their own concept maps after each topic was taught. By the end of the semester, each student had developed eight concept maps covering eight topics in dynamics. Four example concept maps that were developed by students are provided in the paper. An end-of-the-semester questionnaire survey was administrated to solicit students' feedback on their experiences with concept mapping activities. Representative student comments and recommendations are presented in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Network science is an emerging area of complexity science that uses mathematical techniques to study complex systems and could represent a new way of quantifying and investigating the internal structure of domain‐specific knowledge as approximated by students' concept maps. Students enrolled in introductory psychology constructed concept maps to represent their understanding of a psychology chapter. Concept networks were constructed based on the concept maps generated by students. Network analysis revealed that the structure of concept networks differed across students (i.e., some networks were better connected than others), and network structure significantly predicted quiz scores, such that concept networks with larger average shortest path lengths (a network metric representing the average of the shortest paths between two nodes in a network) were associated with higher quiz scores, after controlling for network size. This paper illustrates how network science techniques can be used to quantify the conceptual structure of a learner's knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Purpose Scope/Method Results Conclusions Concept maps are a valid assessment tool to explore student understanding of diverse topics. Many types of academic programs have integrated concept mapping into their courses, resulting in various activities and scoring methods to understand student perceptions.Few prior reviews of concept mapping have addressed their use within engineering education. This systematic literature review examines articles that use concept mapping as an assessment tool in engineering education contexts and provides suggestions for future research.We conducted a literature search using terms related to concept map and engineering education. Articles were screened by their title, abstract, section, and then full paper, resulting in 53 articles for the final review. Two researchers examined the topic, activity type, and scoring method of the maps.Concept mapping topics fit into three categories, and the activity structures fit into four types. Of seven scoring methods, “Traditional” was the most used. Studies that compared multiple scoring methods showed that the “Holistic” and “Categorical” methods were better able to capture the content of the maps. All types of scoring demonstrated positive outcomes, suggesting that concept maps can demonstrate understanding of the topic and can assess learning.Concept maps have been applied in a number of ways. All types of concept mapping scores were shown to be useful and can lead to a better understanding of the students' learning outcomes. However, more research is needed to determine which scoring methods are recommended for specific applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we outline the use of a concept mapping narrative method to elicit the complex and interconnected conceptualisations of specialized knowledge (assessment literacy) for a specific cohort of participants (teacher-examiners). In particular, we are interested in exploring how relational concept mapping and narrative interviews can be used as a tool for gathering participant's perspectives through encouraging them to organize and represent their ideas on a topic. In our analysis we identify two research challenges that we explore through the use of the methodology: (1) the codification challenge of how to gain information that participants may not find easy to access or express; and (2) the quality challenge of how to capture nuanced information. Our observations suggest that participants employ content and structural features in their maps to move from conceptual simplicity to complexity, to construct a cohesive narrative, and to maintain a self-regulated focus in that construction process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the mentally represented and linguistically bound concepts of Europe of young learners. Special attention is not given to the declarative and school generated knowledge about the EU, but rather to the lexical-semantic knowledge of the learners, which is activated at the lexical impulse {euro[pa/ä]} as part of a concept in the mental lexicon. It aims to find out which knowledge elements learners link with the lexical impulse and which dispositions and pre-concepts the learners have when it comes to Europe in the school context, in educational media or in everyday teaching-learning-situations. Therefore, concept maps are used as a survey instrument and evaluated using a corpus-linguistic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of graphic representations of experience and the social environment in the data collection process is an emerging approach. The terms diagramming, mapping and drawing are often used interchangeably, with no common interdisciplinary understanding of what they mean. The lack of a unifying terminology has resulted in simultaneous but separate developments undermining a more coherent approach to this emergent method. By defining what a diagram is and examining where diagramming fits amongst other data collection approaches, this paper proposes the term diagrammatic elicitation to refer to the use of diagrams in the data collection process. Two subcategories of this approach include: (a) participant-led diagrammatic elicitation, where participants create original diagrams and (b) researcher-led diagrammatic elicitation, where the researcher draws the diagram during the data collection process for discussion or participants edit a researcher-prepared diagram. Establishing these terms will allow researchers to share best practice and developments across disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapping the intellectual structure and dynamics of complex, multidisciplinary domains has long been a challenging task for bibliometrics. Research subjects with outstanding social relevance are typically of this sort, being multifaceted and requiring a synthesis of various field-specific perspectives. Among such subjects, our work addresses policy-related research on obesity, and aims to uncover how this multilevel issue is represented in policy studies through its dense thematic interrelations, and at the interfaces of various research areas participating in the discourse. In doing so, we propose an analytic framework combining so-called hybrid methods of science mapping with the (traditional) use of alluvial diagrams, resulting in what we refer to as "multicluster topics" and "interdisciplinarity maps". Therefore, the contribution of this paper can be considered both at the subject and at the methodological level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although collaborative group work is used by many instructors as a useful educational tool, there is much room for research on how learning actually occurs within collaborative learning environments. This paper attempts to explore the relationship(if any) between task structure and collaborative group interactions in a synchronous peer interaction collaborative learning environment. For this reason, we used the Cmap during a Physics course for Grade 12 students. This paper compares two groups of students, one studying concept maps with single answer task, and the other studying concept maps with variable answer task. The aim of the study presented in this article is to also investigate the influence of task structure on students’ interactivity according to certain indicators and cognitive performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a semi-automatic framework that aims to produce domain concept maps from text and then to derive domain ontologies from these concept maps. This methodology particularly targets the e-learning and AIED (artificial intelligence in education) communities as they need such structures to sustain the production of e-learning resources tailored to learners' needs. This paper details the steps to transform textual resources, particularly textual learning objects (LOs), into domain concept maps and it explains how this abstract structure is transformed into a formal domain ontology. A methodology is also presented to evaluate the results of ontology learning. The paper shows how such structures (domain concept maps and formal ontologies) make it possible to bridge the gap between eLearning and intelligent tutoring systems by providing a common domain model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we visualize the structure and the evolution of the computational intelligence (CI) field. Based on our visualizations, we analyze the way in which the CI field is divided into several subfields. The visualizations provide insight into the characteristics of each subfield and into the relations between the subfields. By comparing two visualizations, one based on data from 2002 and one based on data from 2006, we examine how the CI field has evolved over the last years. A quantitative analysis of the data further identifies a number of emerging areas within the CI field. The data that we use consist of the abstracts of the papers presented at the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI) in 2002 and 2006. Using a fully automatic procedure, so-called concept maps are constructed from the data. These maps visualize the associations between the main concepts in the CI field. Our analysis of the structure and the evolution of the CI field are largely based on the constructed concept maps [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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With the growing emphasis recently on developing organizational and thinking skills alongside language ones, visual tools such as mind maps are being increasingly employed in English language teaching. Many studies have demonstrated that when students use mind maps they tend to be motivated and thus better assimilate information and complete complex tasks. The aim of this paper is to discuss the different types and uses of such learning devices. It also demonstrates based on evidence from the literature how mind maps as effective tools that teachers can use to enhance learning, attend to various learning styles, make instruction student-directed rather than teacher-led, and ultimately generate excitement and promote students' engagement. The paper concludes with some literature-based guidelines that EFL teachers need to follow in order to effectively implement mind maps in their classrooms. These are mainly instructions on teacher instruction stages, and the precise point of implementation and how it influences the degree of effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concept maps have been considered as effective tools for meaningful learning and knowledge development as well as for evaluation of knowledge gained and skills acquired during the process. These are also helpful in studying the changes taking place in cognitive structures of the learner, specially in the subject domains where content is in structured form. Many researchers have used concept maps as tools for creating constructivist learning environments for teaching different subjects and as tools to assess conceptual knowledge development among the learners. In addition to this, concept maps can also be used for analyzing the effectiveness of a learning system. This paper focuses on all these aspects and is divided into three parts. First part discusses the use of concept maps in designing teaching learning component in a Constructivist Learning Environment(CLE) along with different concept mapping tools to create a concept mapping network. Second part aims at studying and comparing different assessment methods available to measure both conceptual knowledge as well as skills acquired in applying the conceptual knowledge in practical scenarios. Third and the last part identifies and compares different tools available to analyse the results obtained from assessing concept maps. These tools can be used to draw conclusions while assessing the effectiveness of the learning system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning Objects (LOs) are one of building blocks of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) supported learning. ICT support can be used in the traditional face-to-face model, in a completely online situation or in a hybrid (blended) style. The development of LOs is time and resources consuming, for this reason, it is important that they can de shared and reused. This paper addresses the use o Concept Maps (CMaps) to model topics that make up the area known as Linear Time-Invariant Systems (LTI Systems) as taught in some engineering curricula. The CMaps are used to define the granularity of Learning Objects (LOs) in this area. It also addresses the deployment of a Blended Learning Signals and Systems course that is mandatory in five undergaduate curricula. The CMaps are used to define "regions" of related LOs that are used in the guide (story board) of this course. The LOs are among the digital resources to be used. The results of this work allow future extensions in terms of examining the syllabi of the undergraduate courses that teach LTI Systems and of developing additional blended learning courses. Results are presented and future developments are also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on 30 semi-structured interviews with women academics based in London higher education institutions in the UK, this paper investigates the gendered nature of the prestige economy in academia. We explore how mid-career academic women strategise their career development and the opportunities and barriers they perceive, particularly in relation to the accrual of academic esteem. Concept maps were used to facilitate dialogue about career plans and provided an artefact from the interviewee’s own perspective. The analysis draws on the concept of prestige, or the indicators of esteem that help advance academic careers, against the backdrop of a higher education context which increasingly relies on quantitative data to make judgements about academic excellence. The interviews indicated that women generally feel that men access status and indicators of esteem more easily than they do. Many women also had ambivalent feelings about gaining recognition through prestige: they understood the importance of status and knew the ‘rules of the game’, but were critical of these rules and sometimes reluctant to overtly pursue prestige. The findings are valuable for understanding how women’s slow access to the highest levels of higher education institutions is shaped by the value that organisations place on individual status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many science students struggle with using scientific language and making sense of scientific phenomena. Thus, there is an increased interest in science education research and public policy with regard to understanding and promoting scientific language use and sensemaking in science classrooms. However, there is a lack of comparative studies on how upper-secondary school students of different achievement and language levels use scientific language to make sense of phenomena. The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between achievement level, scientific language use, and sensemaking in chemistry for students being set a sensemaking task while constructing concept maps on the topic of chemical equilibrium. The concept maps were collected from five different upper-secondary schools in Sweden from two school systems (Swedish and International Baccalaureate). Using content analysis, these concept maps were examined for scientific language use as well as structuring of sensemaking. A majority of the students had difficulty structuring sensemaking in their concept maps, independently of achievement level. These difficulties included unstructured reasoning, symbolic representations being used as explanations, surface-level learning, and linear reasoning connected to rote learning. There appeared to be a connection between learning context and student individual structuring of sensemaking as expressed in the concept maps. The results also showed a clear relationship between scientific language use and achievement level in the student sample. The results indicate that the structuring of sensemaking and scientific language use are not always connected processes. In conclusion, teachers may need to adopt a teaching practice that includes directed and differentiated support for scientific sensemaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formative feedback enables comparison to be made between a learner's current understanding and a desired learning goal. Obtaining this information is a time consuming task that most tutors cannot afford. We therefore wished to develop a support software tool, which provides tutors and learners with information that identifies a learner's progress, and requires only limited human intervention. The central idea is to use language technologies to create concepts maps automatically from texts, such as students' essays or Blogs. By comparing maps from students over time, or with maps created from tutor's materials, or by other students, it should be possible to ascertain learners' progress and identify remedial actions. We review existing tools for automatic construction of concepts maps and describe our initial explorations of one of these tools. This paper then introduces the theoretical background of the proposed tool, design considerations and requirements. An initial validation, which explored tutors' perceptions of the tool showed that tutors found the approach relevant, but its implementation in practice requires to consider teachers' practices, the tools already in use, as well as institutional policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For beginning teachers to make the transition to full professional membership they need to increase their professional knowledge of the art and science of teaching. This paper explores the difference in knowledge growth between beginning teachers who commence teaching in fragmented teaching situations in the first two years of teaching, and their colleagues who have stable, secure and continuing employment during this time. This paper argues that the employment context in which beginning teachers take up their profession has a significant, but hitherto largely unacknowledged, effect on the capacity of teachers to develop the craft of teaching (Elbaz, 1983); on their continuing commitment to the profession; and on their self-confidence and self-image as teachers It is concluded that long-term, secure employment in one school, with full responsibility for a class of students and access to effective mentoring, is necessary if beginning teachers are to move beyond 'survival' to developing competency in the first two years of teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to develop a methodology that will discover, specify and measure students’ abilities and skills in creating concept maps. Because competencies are the key factor in higher education, the paper analyzes the role of concept maps as a tool to diagnose and improve information analysis, synthesis, organization and representation skills and competencies. We propose a methodology that enables these skills to be evaluated by observing, analyzing and measuring the stages involved in creating a concept map: identification of the main and secondary subjects; subject codification by concepts; grading of concepts; and representation of the concepts and their relationships with labels. A case study using action research methodology tests its usefulness on a group of university students of library and information science. The method proposed provides information on the strengths and weaknesses of the students’ skills, thus enabling their training to be improved by means of specific actions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]