2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This full paper describes the implementation and evaluation of concept maps as a pre-writing activity in chemical engineering. Concept mapping provides a non-linear means for organizing information around a central topic that allows the creator to demonstrate their knowledge of a topic, identify new connections among concepts related to the central topic, and identify areas where they need more information to understand the topic. Chemical engineering students tasked with developing a technical proposal were given a concept mapping assignment as an early pre-writing task. Participants were from two courses, Technical & Professional Communication and Separation Processes, and ranged from sophomore to senior. Concept maps were scored using traditional scoring, a method that computes a numerical concept map score from the number of concepts, number of hierarchies, length of the highest hierarchy, and number of crosslinks (connections across hierarchies). Concept maps were also scored qualitatively by the instructor for structure. For the most part traditional scoring correlated with qualitative analysis (a higher traditional score signaled a more complex map structure) but notable exceptions occurred. These exceptions typically fell into high traditional score/simple structure and were maps that included many concepts but did not synthesize connections between the concepts through crosslinks. Use of concept maps did force students to organize their ideas prior to writing, and did cause many to realize they needed to do further research before writing. Used in concert with other pre-writing activities, they may serve as a valuable tool for engineers in preparing papers and other writing products. From an instructor standpoint, evaluation can be difficult; however, the widespread correlation between traditional scoring and the instructor’s qualitative score may suggest that traditional scoring could be leveraged as a mechanism for feedback. The relative simplicity of traditional scoring, and current efforts by others to create automated traditional scoring tools to support concept map use, promote the feasibility of more widespread adoption of concept mapping.