Concept Mapping in Learning Histology from the Viewpoint of Midwifery Students

Concept mapping is an active, creative, and objective practice which improves the advanced learning process and students’ required skills. The aim of this study was the evaluation of concept mapping method in learning histology lessons from the point of view of midwifery students.
The present research was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. The target population consisted of all first-semester midwifery students of Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Iran, in 2015. After concept mapping education, the students were asked to make a concept map of the lessons of the same week and to hand it in the following session. At the end of the semester, student's views regarding the effect of concept mapping on learning were collected by completing the researcher-made questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS software. Frequency distribution was presented in the form of frequency tables. One-sample t-test was used to compare the mean score of each question with its mean and 3 (the value of the mean).
In this study, 68.9% of students confirmed the usefulness of concept mapping during the semester. Among the students, 6.9% believed other methods to be more effective. However, 58.6% of students found it effective in memorizing histological terms and 65.5% emphasized that concept mapping helped them better understand histology lessons. Independent t-test results showed a significant difference between the mean score of each question and 3. This revealed that mapping was useful in better understanding (P = 0.003), maintaining terminology (P = 0.004), and answering questions (P = 0.001). In general, the majority of students approved the use of concept mapping as an effective learning method during the term (P This study showed that concept maps are acceptable among students as a means of learning new information. Therefore, in order to facilitate learning for students, the application of different training strategies, like concept mapping, is suggested in basic medical sciences educations.