The rationale for using concept mapping in ImpaCT2

This chapter discusses the use of a particular form of image-based concept mapping to explore how students aged 10–16 conceptualise the role of computers in today’s

world. It is based on the work of the ImpaCT2 project, 1999–2002, 2 funded by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) for England and Wales. The aims of ImpaCT2, speciﬁ ed in the invitation to tender, were:

1 to identify the impacts of networked technologies on the school and out-of- school environment;

2 to determine whether or not this impact affects the educational attainment of students aged 8–16 in English schools;

3 to provide information that would assist in the formation of national, local and school policies on the deployment of ICT.

A mixed methodology was adopted which would combine quantitative measurement of students’ gains in national tests (at ages 11 and 14) and examinations (at age 16) with qualitative research into young people’s use of ICT at school and at home, and the nature of their learning with ICT. To measure attainment the project looked for differences between students’ actual and expected test results, using the University of Durham’s PIPS and YELLIS data on individual students in the sample (Fitzgibbon 2002), and correlated these with the extent of their use of ICT during the previous 18 months (Harrison et al. 2002). From the start, however, the evaluators were mindful that this approach might fail to identify new kinds of learning made possible with ICT which might not be measured by traditional tests. For example, the innovative work of the Apple Classroom for Tomorrow project (Sandholtz et al. 1997) and the creative, exploratory pedagogies advocated by Heppell (1993) do not employ the kind of close focus on learning pre-speciﬁ ed subject matter and concepts that is likely to lead to high scores in tests. These case studies of classrooms using technology as an integral part of innovative pedagogies provide evidence of very signiﬁ cant changes in the nature of students’ learning, in particular in their autonomy, creativity and high levels of motivation. It was important for ImpaCT2, therefore, to collect other data which would provide a different kind of evidence from test scores. The impact of networked technologies on the school and out-of-school environments was investigated primarily by collecting students’ accounts of where, how, how often and when they used them. In addition, a concept mapping task was used to capture students’ knowledge and understanding of current uses of computers in their world.

The assumption, drawing upon the work of Project REPRESENTATION 3 (Pearson and Somekh 2003), was that students whose concept maps showed that their conceptualisation of these new tools was complex and extensive would be very well prepared to acquire skills easily and use ICT creatively. This assumption was based on a tradition of research in socio-cultural psychology which extends the Vygotskian concept of a mediating tool to include the interior cognitive representations of the tool that are essential pre-requisites to using the tool itself effectively (Cole 1999, p. 91). In the project proposal we suggested:

164 Research methods for ICT in education Such data could be crucial in the ﬁ nal analysis of attainment in relation to school

factors, and could offer a much more subtle account of the ICT-attainment relationship than has been available from earlier statistical research studies.

(ImpaCT2 Proposal to the DfES, November 1999)

Evidence to suggest that ICT might support kinds of learning not reﬂ ected in national tests

My action research with teachers during the 1980s suggested that technology can

be used to transform children’s learning experiences but that this depends to a considerable extent on the way the curriculum is specifi ed and how it is enacted through the processes of teaching and learning. The critical factor is the extent to which teachers and students are able to adopt cognitively active roles ‘since knowledge is constructed and reconstructed through a heuristic processes of creative thinking and interaction, as well as the acquisition of appropriate information’ (Somekh and Davies 1991, p. 154). The main fi ndings of my research, carried out before the national curriculum had been implemented in schools (Somekh 1997) can be summarised as follows. The use of ICT tools in classrooms shifts the focus of attention away from the teacher to the computer screen, which begins to undermine the traditional authority role of teachers: when teachers respond positively to this as an opportunity it can have an empowering effect for both them and their students by making it easier to work together as co-learners. Moreover, when a genuine attempt is made to integrate the use of ICT with the learning tasks that students undertake, the culture of the classroom changes signifi cantly, in terms of its organisation and how students learn. Students can work more effectively either alone or in small groups because their interactions with the computer keep them on-task for longer. Once they have some skills, they can work more autonomously in the sense of being freer from the teacher’s direction, better able to fi nd the information they need without help, and able to produce products unhampered by poor spelling and handwriting, in which they appear to take greater pride. More time can be spent on tasks which involve cognitive engagement and less on low-level, time-consuming tasks.

However, the school curriculum in 1999 when the ImpaCT2 project began, with its emphasis on teaching pre-speciﬁ ed knowledge to ensure that students reached ‘attainment targets’ and frequent practising for national tests to reach the school’s targets for numeracy and literacy, did not suggest that the use of ICT was likely to

be transforming students’ learning experiences. This made it possible at the start of ImpaCT2 to envisage that the impact on students’ learning of the introduction of networked technologies into schools might be negligible. If this proved to be the case, it would be important for the evaluators to provide recommendations in response to Aim 3 for changes in the deployment of ICT to enable it to have the transformative impact that policy-makers envisaged. Data to support the claim that ICT had the potential to be transformative if the curriculum and pedagogy changed would not, however, de facto be available in the schools. These data would need to draw on students’ use of ICT outside the school environment. In addition, through concept mapping methods we could collect data on young people’s conceptualisations of ICT

Mapping learning potential 165 in today’s world, from which we might be able to imply their potential to use ICT

creatively and autonomously if practices in schools were to change.

The rationale for using concept mapping in ImpaCT2