AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
GRAPHIC VISUALIZATION OF LEARNERS´ MENTAL REPREZENTATION
a
NINA KOZÁROVÁ,
b
JANA DUCHOVIČOVÁ
Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Department of
Pedagogy, Drážovská cesta 4, 949 74 Nitra, Slovakia
email:
a
nkozarova@ukf.sk,
b
jduchovicova@ukf.sk
The paper was developed with support under APVV project no. C-15-0368 called
"Practice in the Centre of the Subject Field Didactics, Subject Field Didactics in the
Centre of Practical Training”. The paper was developed with support under VEGA
1/0391/20 project TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING OF THE STUDENT
TEACHERS IN THE CONTEXT OF PUPILS´CRITICAL THINKING
DEVELOPMENT.
Abstract: The presented paper compares the influence of nonlinear structuring of the
curriculum on the graphical visualization of the curriculum of a selected thematic unit
in the mental representations of learners. The method of an experiment and the method
of a test of conceptual mapping were applied in the research. The consistency of
concept maps was assessed by the relational method of evaluation through an ordinal
variable: graphical visualization of a concept map. By the analysis of the results it has
been discovered that through the use of nonlinear structuring of the curriculum the
learners’ results have improved in experimental groups within the investigated
parameter of operationalization.
Keywords: concept map, mental representation of a curriculum, meaningfulness,
parameter, structuring of the curriculum, strategy.
1 Introduction
In recent decades we have seen a growing negative response to
the quality of didactic procedures applied in school. Despite the
critical response towards school and school education there is no
doubt about the importance of education for human life. Today
we know that teaching only scientific knowledge is not
enough and that part of effective teaching is the development of
skills linked to critical thinking such as: the ability to identify
key ideas in texts and arguments, to recognize connections, to
search for relationships between information, to correctly
interpret data, to draw logical conclusions. All of the mentioned
connections regardless of the specificity to the subject in
schools give teachers a specific task: to psycho-
didactically process the curriculum and include such teaching
methods that stimulate critical thinking skills.
2 Psycho-didactic Competencies of a Teacher
Following international efforts to support the development of
critical thinking of learners in the teaching process it is desirable
to identify in our provenance educational strategies that have the
potential to stimulate critical thinking in educational practice.
Within the preparation process of future teachers we consider the
identification of strategies for the development of critical
thinking as a basic prerequisite for quantitative and qualitative
change in their training for the 21
st
century. The requirement for
the determination of strategies of critical thinking development
is to define the construction level of critical thinking and the
evidence that the skills to think critically can be directly
influenced within the educational process (Halpern, 2014;
Abrami, et all, 2008; Heyman, 2008).
The basic pillar of the school and formal education as a whole is
the teacher which logically implies a requirement to change the
preparation of future teachers. We believe that the goal should be
to equip teachers with psycho-didactic competencies so that they
are able to provide cognitive-oriented learning experiences and
implement adaptive teaching strategies for the development of
learners’ critical thinking. We define teacher’s psycho-didactic
competencies as the abilities and skills of a teacher to psycho-
didactically process the curriculum and manage education with
the intention of developing learners’ cognitive and metacognitive
processes and their application in practice, implementing
teaching strategies and assessment activities that have the
potential to significantly contribute to the development of all
personality and cognitive characteristics of a learner.
Authors who have attempted for operationalization and who
tried to define strategies for the development of critical thinking
overlap in several constructs therefore critical thinking is defined
primarily through the naming of cognitive abilities. According to
Kneedler (1985) the development of critical thinking requires the
development of competences:
identify, define and specify the problem (identify the main
starting points, controversial issues, determine the main
idea of the text, compare the similarities and differences
between two subjects, determine which information is
important and which is irrelevant, formulate appropriate
questions leading to a deeper understanding of
the situation)
assess information related to the problem (distinguish facts
and opinions, apply criteria for quality assessment, check
the consistency of statements, recognize value systems,
recognize emotional factors, various ideologies)
draw conclusions (determine the suitability and adequacy
of the data for the conclusion, predict the likely
consequences of the solution adopted).
3 Constructivism in Educational Practice
It appears to us that little attention is paid in educational
practice to what teaching strategies are aimed at developing the
competence of effective learning and the development of critical
thinking. It is necessary to constantly ask ourselves what a
successful but especially a functional model of learning should
look like. Although each situation provides learners with the
same information, they cannot perceive them all at once, so
when they perceive, they spontaneously choose the ones they
evaluate as easier to accept, although they are not aware of the
degree of necessity. It is evident that each learner receives
different information from the same situation. The degree of
information selection among learners depends on their
experience, so the more experience learners have with selecting
information, the better they can set their filter.
It is necessary that in educational practice we analyze
information that is key to understanding the
presented curriculum (knowledge of which is essential) and
select information that is complementary and learners can
acquire them later. The imperative of a contemporary education
system should be not only to lead learners to acquire knowledge
but also to organize basic information so that it forms a
supportive system for their internal knowledge structure.
Constructivist requirements and their application in educational
practice represent primarily an emphasis on the individual
interpretation scheme of the learner, as a learner with his/her
active construction of cognition develops his/her learning
mechanisms. We perceive constructivism in the teaching process
as a reflected educational activity, construction and
reconstruction of learners’ internal knowledge system, focusing
attention on supporting learner’s active understanding and
stimulating higher cognitive functions. Constructivist education
is not the transfer and subsequent acquisition of "finished"
knowledge but the construction of one’s own meanings of
individual knowledge and their subsequent systematization into
the internal knowledge structure.
We understand the constructivist approach in educational
practice mainly by updating previous knowledge, the active role
of the learner, focusing attention on activities that induce thought
operations, problem situations that support the development of
critical thinking, the emphasis on social and cultural context
when acquiring new information, construction of schemes and
models of acquired knowledge, modification of internal
knowledge structures based on experience.
We believe that the mechanism of information processing as
well as the quality of perception are key determinants for the
formation possibly modification of specific learning strategies
because stated factors also significantly affect the symbolization,
coding, organization of information into functional units and
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