Effectiveness of Adaptive Concept Maps for Promoting Conceptual Understanding: Findings from a Design-Based Case Study of a Learner-Centered Tool

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky

Traditional instructional materials such as textbooks include substantial educational content, yet their navigation mechanisms limit how learners access and use that content for learning. To address this gap, the paper introduces the Adaptive Map, an organization and navigation tool that uses expert-generated concept maps to support conceptual understanding. Visualization techniques are integrated to improve usability when working with large-scale maps. A prototype was tested in an engineering statics class using a multiple case study, showing improved organizer use and deeper exploration of relevant prior knowledge.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages35

Reading Time1 h 28 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Conceptual vs. procedural knowledge in engineering education

Expert-generated concept maps as advance organizers

Digital textbooks and learning-theory-driven design

Design of the Adaptive Map (overview)

Prototype testing and evaluation approach

Findings and implications

| | Ad | vances in Engineering Edu | cation | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | SUMMER 2015 Effectiveness of Adaptive Concept Maps for Promoting Conceptual Understanding: Findings from a Design-Based Case Study of a Learner-Centered Tool JACOB MOORE Penn State Mont Alto Mont Alto, PA CHRISTOPHER B. WILLIAMS AND CHRISTOPHER NORTH Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA ADITYA JOHRI George Mason University Fairfax, VA AND MARIE PARETTI Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA ABSTRACT Traditional instructional materials such as textbooks contain significant educational content, but thenavigational mechanisms to access that content are limited and, more importantly, not designed with learning in mind. To address this gap, we present the Adaptive Map, a novel organization and navigation tool designed to help students better understand large collections of information such as those found in textbooks. The tool promotes conceptual understanding by leveraging expert-generated concept maps, which have been shown to improve learning. In addition, to alleviate problems associated with visually processing large-scale concept maps, our design integrated information visualization techniques to increase usability and facilitate processing. To evaluate the approach, a prototype was developed and tested in an engineering statics class. A multiple case study methodology was used to explore how students used the tool. Results show that the tool promoted conceptual understanding by facilitating advance organizer usage and students’ exploration of relevant prior content. Key Words: Conceptual Understanding, Digital Textbook, Concept Map, Information Visualization SUMMER 2015 1 ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION Effectiveness of Adaptive Concept Maps for Promoting Conceptual Understanding: Findings from a Design-Based Case Study of a Learner-Centered Tool INTRODUCTION Within engineering education practice, centralized sources of information such as textbooks that students can access outside the classroom are commonly used. These sources of information have been shown to support out-of-the-classroom learning in such activities as studying for exams or completing homework assignments (Taraban et al. 2004), but only limited research has examined how students use these tools and what effect the design of these tools has on learning (Lee et al. 2013) . With digital textbooks becoming more common across all subject areas (Schuetze 2011), there are many opportunities for new and innovative designs that better leverage what we know about how students learn. Such leveraging is critical because the change in medium from paper to digital textbooks alone will not improve student learning (Russell 1999); the underlying design of the tool must be based on theories of how people learn to be effective. In this paper we use a learning-theory-driven designto develop a better digital textbook, which in turn provides an avenue to examine how digital textbooks can improve student learning. The vision for this design began with a well-documented need for engineering students to have better conceptual understanding in a variety of core engineering subjects (Streveler et al. 2008) . In the context of problem solving, there is a common distinction between two types of knowledge: procedural skilland conceptual understanding (Greeno, Riley, and Gelman 1984; Piaget 1978; RittleJohnson, Siegler, and Alibali 2001) . Procedural skill is the “ability to execute action sequences to solve problems”(Rittle-Johnson et al., 2001, p. 346), whereas in contrast, conceptual understanding is the“implicit or explicit understanding of the principles that govern a domain and of the interrelations between units of knowledge in a domain”(Rittle-Johnson et al., 2001, p. 346) . While both procedural and conceptual knowledge can be used to help solve proble

FAQs

What problem does the paper address about traditional textbooks?

Textbooks provide significant educational content, but their navigation mechanisms are not designed for learning, limiting how students access and use information effectively.

How does the Adaptive Map aim to improve students’ learning?

It promotes conceptual understanding by using expert-generated concept maps and integrates information visualization techniques to increase usability and support processing of large-scale maps.

How was the Adaptive Map evaluated and what were the results?

A prototype was tested in an engineering statics class using a multiple case study methodology. Results indicate the tool promoted conceptual understanding by facilitating advance organizer usage and supporting students’ exploration of relevant prior content.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Rizky