Effects of concept mapping-based review strategy on students’ literature review writing ability and critical thinking tendency

Literature review writing ability is an important part of scientific research ability. It is always a challenging goal to improve students’ literature review writing ability in higher education Research Methods course. In this study, a concept mapping-based review strategy was developed to improve the literature review writing ability and critical thinking tendency of undergraduates. Two groups of pre-test and post-test experiments were conducted on Educational Research Methods course in a university. The results display that: Concept maps can significantly improve students’ critical thinking tendency; Concept maps can indirectly promote students’ literature review writing ability. Students with higher critical thinking tendency have higher literature review writing ability; Moreover, Concept maps can promote students’ comprehension of literature review moves.