This study compared the effects of a constructivist-visual mind map teaching approach (CMA) and of a traditional teaching approach (TTA) on (a) the quality and richness of students' knowledge structures and (b) TTA and CMA students' perceptions of the extent that a constructivist learning environment (CLE) was created in their classes. The sample…

Assesses ideational networks based on a written narrative of seventh grade students who had begun a unit on evolution. Indicates that students who scored high on the content analyses of their written narrative and whose narrative contained extensive ideational network linkages also tended to use a logical, sequential rule of ordering their…

Interviews 9th and 10th grade students (n=13) who studied an ecology unit and analyzed tape-recorded data for changes in organization of knowledge, represented by ideational networks and the development of higher cognitive operations. Provides insights into how students developed knowledge schemata, ideational networks, and the capacity to express…

Method is presented for displaying the sequential and multirelational ideation of scientific narrative elicited from respondents. The flow map provides a figural representation of the flow of information, the points in the flow where multirelational and recurrent linkages are made, and the time required to retrieve and express the information at…

Investigated is a reader's ability to comprehend written text that is highly novel with few semantic cues. The theoretical perspective, assessment theory, materials and methods, and the results of this study are discussed. (KR)