Multivariate analyses were first conducted to investigate whether and how the three groups differed in the production of the four types of proposition.

Macalester College

- Eighty-eight 10th-grade high school students (all male) from an area in north-western Taiwan participated in this study, as part of a ‘creative learning project’ initiated by a collaborative university. One week before the experiment, a training lesson on concept maps was provided to make sure they were all ready for the experiment.
- A booklet that contains two texts and seven tasks was designed for the participants to read and then respond to. The texts were about the causes of the most monumental uprising in Taiwan’s history, that is, the 228 Incident. The booklet was designed in three versions, which differed only in the type of concept map provided for the first text. No concept maps were provided for the second text.


Methods (Designs of concept maps and their impacts on readers’ performance in memory and reasoning while reading)

Jeng-Yi Tzeng, (2010) Designs of concept maps and their impacts on readers’ performance in memory and reasoning while reading. National Tsing Hua University. United Kingdom Literacy Association. Journal of Research in Reading, ISSN 0141-0423 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01404.x Volume 33, Issue 2, 2010, pp 128–147


Designs of concept maps and their impacts on readers’ performance in memory and reasoning while reading


The three versions of the booklet were randomly  distributed to the participants, who were thus divided into three groups: 
- The first group (hereafter called the comprehensive map group) was provided with a booklet that contained a comprehensive concept map. 
- The second group of participants (hereafter called the thematic map group) had a booklet with a concept map that was designed to highlight the threads of arguments.
- Finally, the rest of the participants (hereafter called the no map group) were provided with a booklet that had no concept map beside the first text.


Experiment design (Designs of concept maps and their impacts on readers’ performance in memory and reasoning while reading)

The two texts used in this experiment were excerpts of editorials published in two newspapers a few days after the outbreak of the 228 Incident.

The texts (Designs of concept maps and their impacts on readers’ performance in memory and reasoning while reading)

The participants needed to complete the following seven tasks in a strict time frame. After the time for each of the tasks was up, materials were collected before they could continue with the next task, to make sure that the participants relied only on their memories to handle the tasks.

The Tasks (Designs of concept maps and their impacts on readers’ performance in memory and reasoning while reading)

- The analyses were conducted by two graduate students majoring in history, and a professor supervised the analyses and mediated the discussions over discrepant ratings between the two raters when necessary
- To understand how the participants formed and operated their mental representations, the participants’ recalls of the texts were first broken down into propositions by the two raters. Different approaches were used to analyse the propositions. 
- Propositions were rated as ‘valid’ or ‘invalid’
- Every valid proposition was awarded with one point. Every answer that received scores with two or more points of discrepancy between the two raters was checked by the professor to make sure no systematic rating bias existed. 
- Five types of propositions. 


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