The use of mind maps as an assessment tool - Assessment experience and rubric development

Sep 10, 2026

Mind maps are presented as a well-established study aid for visual learners, enabling students to represent complex topics in a memorable way beyond traditional text. The paper reports the assessment approach used in an Energy and Environmental Engineering course at IT Tallaght, where visual-learning biases affected module evaluation. Instead of essay-based assessments, online quizzes and topic-specific mind maps for over 1500 students supported measurement of recall and understanding of relationships.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryPresentations

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction and Motivation

Course context and learning outcomes

Mind maps

Structure and distinguishing features

The assessment of mind maps

Rubric development and grading ground rules

The use of mind maps as an assessment tool. Robbie O’Connor robbie.oconnor@ittdublin.ie Department of Mechanical Engineering Institute of Technology Tallaght Dublin, Ireland Abstract Mind maps are a well established study aid tool. For visual learners they provide avery useful technique to represent a complex topic in a form that will help a student remember details that would otherwise be difficult to represent in text. The school of Engineering in IT Tallaght have recently developed a course in Energy and Environmental Engineering. The course introduces modules into the first semester that give the student a general context for the detailed technical content covered in therest of the course. Given the increasingly diverse nature of our students’ academic background, age profile and learning styles, we have had a difficulty assessing the student’s understanding of these modules without resorting to essay type exam questions or assessments.. A number of assessment techniques were employed including online testing of specific details of each topic and the assessment of a mind map completed by each student on that topic. The aim was to test the students ability to recall the salient details and then to assess the students understanding of how the different elements relate to each other. This paper deals with the experience gained through the assessment of over 1500 mind maps over a three year period. The paper outlines an assessment rubric that has been developed over this period and deals with the experiences gained. Keywords Mind maps, assessment, Rubric, Global / Visual thinkers. 1. Introduction and Motivation. The School of Engineering at IT Tallaght has a long tradition of developing and delivering courses that suit both full time students and mature industry based students. One of these courses is the B.Eng. in Energy and Environmental Engineering. This course has proven to be a very popular among both CAO applicants and mature students. Our first students are due to graduate from the course in 2012. Approximately 50% of which are mature students attending in part time mode. The course was designed to include general modules in the first year that would give the student the context for the technical modules that are a necessity in all engineering course. One of these modules was entitled “Global Environment”. The aim of this module was to give the student a context for the emphasis on energy efficiency, waste minimisation and clean technologies that the student would have to address in the latter modules in the course. While devising an assessment strategy for the module, there was some concern that some students might struggle to perform well if the learning outcomes were assessed using traditional essay type assignments. This concern was subsequently reinforced through learning style assessments that confirmed a strong bias towards visual learning in the group. With this in mind it was decided to assess the learner’s recall and technical ability using online quizzes. Following this, the learner’s grasp of the relationship and significance of the material is then assessed through the completion of a mind map by the student for each topic. 2. Mind maps. Mind maps can be described as a graphical method of representing a topic. The visual structure helps the user represent concepts and ideas with images, colours and symbols if they so wish. A typical mind map might have a central idea and a hierarchical or tree branch format, with ideas branching into their subsections. Although, in practice, there is no compulsory structure. Most engineering students would be familiar with structure diagrams such as concept maps, fault tree diagrams, logic diagrams etc. A key distinction between mind maps and other types of diagrams is that there is no established right or wrong way to complete a mind map. For example a concept map would usually take the form of atop down diagram where each level has an e

FAQs

How were mind maps used to assess student learning in the course?

Students completed a mind map for each topic after online quizzes. The approach tested recall of salient details and evaluated how different elements relate to each other.

Why were online quizzes and mind maps chosen instead of essay-style assessment?

Concerns existed that some students might struggle with traditional essay assignments, and learning-style assessments showed a strong bias toward visual learning. The final strategy focused on recall and technical understanding through non-essay tasks.

What key principles guided the assessment rubric development?

The rubric needed to match the topic learning outcomes, be fair to different learner types, avoid disadvantaging mature students with lower computer literacy, prevent unfair advantage from aesthetics, and support flexibility. It was also designed to be domain independent.

Sep 10, 2026

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