They were required to master the major concepts of a lesson and to list the key subordinate concepts, words, and phrases that were used during class discussions about the central concept. They were expected to arrange the concepts in a hierarchical manner beginning with most inclusive to least inclusive, most concrete to more specific. The results seem to suggest that the concept mapping strategy improved learning in biology more effectively than traditional teaching and reduced students' anxiety towards learning biology. There was a tendency for concept mapping to greatly reduce anxiety towards biology achievement in males more than in females. Females were more anxious than males in the pretest as well as the posttest.
Concept mapping seems to be a good way to reduce the gap between the genders in learning science.
The effect of concept mapping on students' anxiety and achievement in biology. Both groups were treated for about five weeks. The Science Subjects Achievement Test was given as pre- and posttest for the students. The Logical Thinking Ability Test was given as a pretest for all students to determine the intellectual abilities of all students before the treatment The classroom instruction for both groups was done by the same classroom teacher. The instruction for both groups had four 40- minute periods per week.