Experimental Evaluation of the KB-mapping Method to Avoid Sentence-by-Sentence Map-building Style in EFL Reading with Concept Mapping

Abstract

Previous research studies on supporting EFL (English as a Foreign Language) reading showed that the Kit Build concept mapping (KB-mapping) method provided better efficiency than the Scratch Build concept mapping (SB-mapping) method when evaluated by a delayed comprehension test two weeks after the reading activity, although there was no difference in test results immediately following the reading activity. In the present study, we set out to investigate the following research question “Why does the KB-mapping method have better efficiency than the SB-mapping method in recalling the comprehended information two weeks later although there is no difference just after the reading?” We had observed that there was a difference in map-building behaviors between KB-mapping and SB-mapping methods, so we made the assumption that “KB-mapping method does not promote building the map sentence-by-sentence, although the SB-mapping method does”. To confirm this assumption, we used an experiment to compare the learners' map-building progress by the KB-mapping and SB-mapping methods. In the experiment, we monitored the performance of learners in terms of the size of the maps and the progress they made for building maps. We added new functions to our system to record the building process of every learner. We observed that SB-mapping learners tended to use the sentence-by-sentence map-building style, but KB-mapping learners did not. Although there have been no previous research studies about map-building style in supporting reading comprehension with concept mapping, many researchers have indicated that sentence-by-sentence reading is not a good way to comprehend content deeply and keep it in memory for a long time, although sentence-by-sentence reading is useful to understand content rapidly and to keep it for a short time. In map-building, we suspected the same disadvantages and advantages would be true, and this would explain the results, KB-mapping method helps learners to avoid the sentence-by-sentence map-building style, but the SB-mapping method cannot help learners escape from this style of map-building. Based on these results, we will design adaptive support for reading comprehension in our future work.