Concept Maps Lead to Better Problem Statements: An Empirical Study Measuring the Effects of Priming Students to Think in Systems
Publication: Construction Research Congress 2022
ABSTRACT
Challenges associated with the design and construction of the built environment are complex. Students need training to help them deal with this complexity and to help them explore and reframe problems early during project planning and design. Concept maps provide a visual representation of complex information and the relationships between this information. The research presented in this paper tested whether priming students to think in systems by asking them to draw concept maps changes how they construct problem statements. In total, 40 engineering students participated in the study. Half were asked to draw a concept map before constructing a problem statement about how to improve mobility systems around campus. The cognitive effort (i.e., time and words) students spent on the task and the number of unique system elements included in their problem statement were measured. Students that received the concept mapping intervention spent significantly more time thinking about the problem, developed longer problem statements, and included more unique elements of systems. These findings suggest using concept mapping can aid students’ conceptualization of complex problems.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Alexander, P. A. (2016). Relational thinking and relational reasoning: Harnessing the power of patterning. Npj Science of Learning, 1(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1038/npjscilearn.2016.4.
Asimow, M. (1962). Introduction to design. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.
Azhar, S., Carlton, W. A., Olsen, D., and Ahmad, I. (2011). Building information modeling for sustainable design and LEED® rating analysis. Automation in Construction, 20(2), 217–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2010.09.019.
Beckerman, L. P. (2000). Application of complex systems science to systems engineering. Systems Engineering, 3(2), 96–102. https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6858(2000)3:2%3C96::AID-SYS4%3E3.0.CO;2-7.
Birk, E. (2017). Top Five Barriers to Implementing Green Infrastructure on Residential Sites. WEFTEC Technical Conference. https://www.nahb.org/-/media/Sites/NAHB/research/priorities/stormwater/eva-birk-top-five-barriers-to-implementing-green-infrastructure-on-residential-sites.ashx?la=en&hash=0A51936846B8F126D71F78E28DCA969D8B054A5F.
Brown, R. R., and Farrelly, M. A. (2009). Challenges ahead: Social and institutional factors influencing sustainable urban stormwater management in Australia. Water Science and Technology, 59(4), 653–660. https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2009.022.
Bucciarelli, L. L. (1988). An ethnographic perspective on engineering design. Design Studies, 9(3), 159–168.
Chen, Y., Ho, T.-H., and Kim, Y.-M. (2010). Knowledge Market Design: A Field Experiment at Google Answers. Journal of Public Economic Theory, 12(4), 641–664. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2010.01468.x.
Dorst, K., and Cross, N. (2001). Creativity in the design process: Co-evolution of problem–solution. Design Studies, 22(5), 425–437. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0142-694X(01)00009-6.
Dym, C. L., Agogino, A. M., Eris, O., Frey, D. D., and Leifer, L. J. (2005). Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning. Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 103–120.
Earles, A., Rapp, D., Clary, J., and Lopitz, J. (2009). Breaking Down the Barriers to Low Impact Development in Colorado. World Environmental and Water Resources Congress, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1061/41036(342)91.
Flynn, C., and Davidson, C. (2017). Saving the Rain in Onondaga County, New York. Engineering for Sustainable Communities, 367–372. https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784414811.ch25.
Flynn, C., Davidson, C. I., and Mahoney, J. (2014). Transformational Changes Associated with Sustainable Stormwater Management Practices in Onondaga County, New York. ICSI 2014@ SCreating Infrastructure for a Sustainable World, 89–100. http://ascelibrary.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1061/9780784478745#page=103.
Gero, J. S. (1990). Design prototypes: A knowledge representation schema for design. AI Magazine, 11(4), 26–36. https://doi.org/10.1609/aimag.v11i4.854.
Herr, P. (1986). Consequences of priming: Judgment and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1106–1115.
Hu, M., Shealy, T., Grohs, J., and Panneton, R. (2019). Empirical evidence that concept mapping reduces neurocognitive effort during concept generation for sustainability. Journal of Cleaner Production, 117815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.117815.
Jowitt, P. W. (2020). Systems and sustainability. Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 37(4), 253–263. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286608.2020.1839892.
Liao, T., and MacDonald, E. F. (2018). Effects of Collage Priming on Sustainable Design Idea Creation and Assessment. V007T06A056–V007T06A056. https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2018-86291.
Lund, J. (2020). Systems engineering knowledge and skills for water and environmental problems. Civil Engineering and Environmental Systems, 37(4), 183–196. https://doi.org/10.1080/10286608.2020.1850701.
Maher, M. L., and Poon, J. (1996), Modeling design exploration as co-evolution. Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, 11, 195–209. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8667.1996.tb00323.x.
Nijstad, B. A., Stroebe, W., and Lodewijkx, H. F. M. (2002). Cognitive stimulation and interference in groups: Exposure effects in an idea generation task. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38(6), 535–544. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1031(02)00500-0.
Novak, J. D. (1980). Learning Theory Applied to the Biology Classroom. The American Biology Teacher, 42(5), 280–285. https://doi.org/10.2307/4446939.
Novak, J. D., and Cañas, A. J. (2006). The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them (p. 36). Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition.
O’Donnell, A. M., Dansereau, D. F., and Hall, R. H. (2002). Knowledge Maps as Scaffolds for Cognitive Processing. Educational Psychology Review, 14(1), 71–86. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013132527007.
Schön, D. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Temple Smith.
Schön, D. A., and Wiggins, G. (1992). Kinds of seeing and their functions in designing. Design Studies, 13(2), 135–156.
Segalàs, J., Mulder, K. F., and Ferrer‐Balas, D. (2012). What do EESD “experts” think sustainability is? Which pedagogy is suitable to learn it?: Results from interviews and Cmaps analysis gathered at EESD 2008. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 13(3), 293–304. https://doi.org/10.1108/14676371211242599.
Shah, J. J., Smith, S. M., and Vargas-Hernandez, N. (2003). Metrics for measuring ideation effectiveness. Design Studies, 24(2), 111–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0142-694X(02)00034-0.
Simon, H. A. (1973). The structure of ill structured problems. Artificial Intelligence, 4(3–4), 181–201.
US EPA, O. (2015, September 30). Overcoming Barriers to Green Infrastructure [Overviews and Factsheets]. US EPA. https://www.epa.gov/green-infrastructure/overcoming-barriers-green-infrastructure.
Vieira, L. N. (2016). How do measures of cognitive effort relate to each other? A multivariate analysis of post-editing process data. Machine Translation, 30(1–2), 41–62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10590-016-9188-5.
Watson, M. K., Pelkey, J., Noyes, C. R., and Rodgers, M. O. (2016). Assessing Conceptual Knowledge Using Three Concept Map Scoring Methods. Journal of Engineering Education, 105(1), 118–146. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20111.
Zancul, E. D. S., Blikstein, P., Majzoub, G. G., and Dalmon, D. L. (2017). An Empirical Study on Design-Based vs. Traditional Approaches in Capstone Courses in Engineering Education. International Journal of Engineering Education, 1543–1560.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Construction Research Congress 2022
Pages: 234 - 243
History
Published online: Mar 7, 2022
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.