The Journal of Experimental Education

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjxe20

Effectiveness of mind mapping for learning in a

real educational setting

Nathalie Gavens , Nadège Doignon-Camus , Anne-Clémence Chaillou ,

Alexandre Zeitler & Maria Popa-Roch

To cite this article: Nathalie Gavens , Nadège Doignon-Camus , Anne-Clémence Chaillou ,

Alexandre Zeitler & Maria Popa-Roch (2020): Effectiveness of mind mapping for learning in a real
educational setting, The Journal of Experimental Education, DOI: 10.1080/00220973.2020.1848765

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2020.1848765

Published online: 26 Nov 2020.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 8

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjxe20
THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2020.1848765

LEARNING, INSTRUCTION, AND COGNITION

Effectiveness of mind mapping for learning in a real

educational setting
Nathalie Gavensa , Nad
ege Doignon-Camusa , Anne-Clemence Chailloua,
Alexandre Zeitlerb, and Maria Popa-Rocha
a
University of Strasbourg, University of Haute-Alsace, University of Lorraine, Strasbourg, France; bColl
ege
Saint-Exupery, Mulhouse, France

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The purpose of the experiment reported here was to investigate whether Classroom research; testing;
mind mapping adds any value as a studying technique to that of testing. teaching; learning
We compared the effects of mind mapping on acquisition on graders processes/strategies; mid-
dle schools
(N ¼ 68) in a secondary school in two separate consecutive periods of
learning called series. In series 1, half the students used mind mapping
plus testing to learn the content of the course, and other half used testing
alone. In series 2, the organization was reversed, in a repeated measure
design. The results revealed that students’ performances improved during
the two series, but that they did not progress more when they used mind
mapping. These results indicate that the popularity of mind mapping in
learning practices does not reflect its effectiveness. We discuss our results
in relation with the need for teaching practices to be based on theories of
evidence-based education rather than on intuition only.

Introduction
MIND MAPPING IS BASED on the teaching approach that emphasizes a student-centered vision
of teaching. The mind map is defined as a particular type of graphic that allows individuals to
organize facts and thoughts in a map format containing a central image, main themes radiating
from the central image, branches with key images and key words, plus branches creating a con-
nected nodal structure (Buzan, 2005). Other authors define mind mapping as a study technique
in which information is converted into a diagrammatic representation of the important key words
associated with a study topic (Farrand et al., 2002). Information is therefore hierarchically organ-
ized with the most general information displayed in the center and material with increasing detail
being presented at the extremes. According to Willis and Miertschin (2006), the mind mapping is
considered here as a tool that essentially makes possible to develop the understanding of know-
ledge through the active engagement produced by the learners. Constructing a map allows the
learners to build their knowledge through a graphic representation that makes sense for them.
This structure highlights the way in which the learners make the link between concepts and a
central idea (Willis & Miertschin, 2006).
Mind mapping has become popular in classrooms worldwide and numerous books are pub-
lished for teachers explaining how to use mind maps (Buzan, 2002; 2005; Buzan & Buzan, 1993,
2006).Various disciplines, mainly health professions (for a review, Daley & Torre, 2010; Pudelko
et al., 2012), but also marketing (Eriksson & Hauer, 2004), economics (Nettleship, 1992), finance
(Biktimirov & Nilson, 2006) use mind mapping as a teaching and learning tool. In the

CONTACT Nathalie Gavens nathalie.gavens@uha.fr 10 rue des Fr
eres Lumi
eres, Mulhouse, 68093, France.
ß 2020 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 N. GAVENS ET AL.

educational studies field, Chang et al. (2010) investigated the research trends in scientific litera-
ture from 1990 to 2007 and reported that the topic of conceptual change and concept mapping
was the most studied. The mind-mapping technique has the support of many teachers on the
basis of widespread beliefs that it increases students’ learning efficacy. Indeed, teachers think that
using mind maps helps them to better prepare their lessons and make it more interesting for stu-
dents (Keles, 2012). Despite the frequent use of this technique in teaching, few studies have inves-
tigated its effectiveness for learning. Thus, the present paper contributes with experimental
evidence to this scarce literature in the context of secondary school education. The goal of the
study was to test whether mind mapping improves the learning of key concepts taught over a
specified period in real classroom conditions.

Which Study Strategies are Judged to be Effective?

Arming students with effective study strategies is vital to their academic achievement. A study
strategy refers to actions performed by a learner intended to improve learning (Mayer, 2008).
Study strategies are thought to induce students’ engagement in effective cognitive processing dur-
ing learning, resulting in better recall of the material than when students do not engage in such
study activities (Dunlosky et al., 2013). Research in cognitive psychology applied to education
documents efficient educational practices and study strategies. Although the review proposed by
Dunlosky and collaborators highlights which strategies to apply to learn more efficiently, teachers
and students do not necessarily use them in their teaching and learning activities. A recent paper
showed that the most popular strategies among students are rereading, highlighting, note-taking,
outlining or using flash cards (Miyatsu et al., 2018). However, some techniques as the rereading
or the highlighting were shown to be of very limited or moderate usefulness (Dunlosky et al.,
2013). The most effective practice that leads to the highest learning, memorization and organiza-
tion of information is retrieval (i.e., testing). Testing consists of making an effort to recover what
has been learned (and is partially being forgotten) through questions.
Much evidence has been produced for the direct and indirect benefits of testing for learning
(Agarwal et al., 2012; Binks, 2018 for a review; Roediger et al., 2011; Roediger & Karpicke, 2006).
Unlike testing, mind mapping does not appear among the evidence-based techniques recom-
mended to improve learning. On the one hand, few techniques have been evaluated in representa-
tive educational contexts and, on the other hand, mind mapping is very widely used by teachers
in their daily teaching. Disregarding the frequent use of mind mapping in educational practices,
empirical evidence is infrequently addressed in the literature. Indeed, mind mapping has received
little empirical attention in contemporary educational intervention research (Merchie & Van
Keer, 2016).

Is Mind Mapping an Efficient way to Learn?

Students can strategically engage in learning strategies to tackle material to be acquired. Various
types of graphic organizers have been studied, including concept maps and knowledge maps (i.e.,
diagrams that represent ideas as node-link assemblies, Nesbit & Adesope, 2006; Karpicke &
Blunt, 2011). This way of organizing knowledge is thought to help learners to learn meaningfully
and independently (Chiou, 2008) as it is related to deeper-level processing (Nesbit & Adesope,
2006). Compared with activities such as reading a text, listening to a lecture and participating in
class discussions, concept mapping is more effective in acquiring knowledge (g ¼ .742). However,
compared to other learning activities that engage the learners such as writing a summary, the
advantage of concept mapping is smaller (g ¼ .194), leading the authors to conclude that “the
small size of this effect raised doubts about its authenticity and pedagogical significance” (Nesbit
& Adesope, 2006, p. 434).
 THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION 3

In an early experiment conducted in laboratory conditions on effectiveness of concept map

(Holley et al., 1979), psychology students were trained to transform geology texts into maps fol-
lowing a predetermined structure with nodes (concepts) and links (relations). On knowledge tests,
the experimental group outperformed control group participants who were instructed to use their
usual way of studying on acquiring and organizing the main ideas but not on the retention of
details. More recently, Farrand et al. (2002) examined the effectiveness of using mind maps to
improve recall from written information in undergraduate medical students. Participants had to
learn a text either using a self-selected technique (such as rehearsal, repetition and summary elab-
oration) or a mind map. Recall was measured immediately and a week later. Results showed that
recall was comparable in the two groups in the immediate test but that recall was robust one
week later only in the mind map group. The authors suggest that these results are good indicators
of the effectiveness of mind mapping in memorizing written material. In a science course with
teenagers aged of 13–14 years old (Abi-El-Mona & Adb-El-Khalick, 2008), the use of mind map-
ping allowed participants to achieve significant gains on conceptual understanding and practical
reasoning. Similarly, the concept mapping organizer technique was shown to enhance achieve-
ment in an advanced accounting course in students (Chiou, 2008) and in learning foreign lan-
guage texts in students aged from 15 to 22 years (Chularut & DeBacker, 2004). In a study by
Karpicke and Blunt (2011), elaborative concept mapping resulted in less memorization than
retrieval, even if the final test required creating a concept map.
In more ecological settings, i.e., in real classroom conditions, Merchie and Van Keer (2016)
investigated the potential of mind mapping to stimulate elementary school students to learn texts
and to improve performance. The authors expected students who worked with mind maps to
recall the to-be-learned material better. They compared two types of approaches to mind map-
ping, a mind map provided by the researcher and a student-generated mind map in the control
group. Their results showed that even if the students who were provided with a mind map pro-
gressed in applying deep-level learning strategies, in the free recall performance, neither the mind
map provided by the researcher nor the student-generated mind map led to a better performance
than that of the control group in a free recall test.
It thus appears that the literature provides mixed evidence concerning the efficacy of mind
mapping acquisition in general and more particularly in interventions in real classroom settings.

Overview
The goal of the present study was to produce direct evidence concerning the effectiveness of
mind mapping as a study technique for learning in real classroom conditions. More precisely, we
explored whether mind mapping offers any additional advantage over a retrieval practice known
to be an effective studying strategy, i.e., testing. We decided to conduct the study in a secondary
school. Indeed, this period of schooling seems particularly well suited to our research because the
amount of materials to be learned is increasing in quantity and complexity. Consequently study
strategies are of particular importance to enhance students’ learning. Unlike previous studies that
explored mind mapping in the context of “text based learning”, we tested its effectiveness in the
context of ongoing teaching-learning process. We conducted a randomized controlled trial com-
paring the effectiveness of testing alone with that of mind mapping combined with testing in the
classroom with ninth graders in a secondary school. Rather than compare an experimental group
(that receives mind mapping combined with testing) and a control group (that receives testing
alone), we choose a repeated measure design. In such a design each student serves as his/her own
control, and the analysis is directly testing how learning performances change with study strat-
egies. To this end, half the students were subject to testing þ mind mapping in the first series of
lessons and to testing in the second series of lessons (group 1), whereas the other half were sub-
ject to the reverse order, testing in the first series of lessons, then testing þ mind mapping in the
4 N. GAVENS ET AL.

Figure 1. Timeline of the procedure.

second series of lessons (group 2). The experiment followed a pre-learning assessment/learning/
post-learning assessment design (Figure 1). We expected that adding a study strategy such as
mind mapping to the testing would improve learning outcomes.

Method
Participants
Students and teachers volunteered to participate to the study. Eighty-eight 9th grade students
from 5 classes (M ¼ 17.8 students per class) in a French secondary school located in a priority
education zone (i.e., the school receives extra resources such as funding to support the aca-
demic achievement of students from disadvantaged social backgrounds) took part in the study.
The students were predominantly from a middle or low socio-economic background and faced
academic difficulties. There was no difference in the ages of participants of group 1 (age range
13.11 to 15.10 years, mean 14.6) and participants of group 2 (age range 13.11 to 15.10 years,
mean 14.6 years), t(66) ¼ .14, p > .10, ˛2 ¼ .0003. The sample consisted of 33 girls and
35 boys.
Two experienced teachers specialized in life and earth sciences participated in the study. They
agreed to strictly respect the protocol and acknowledged the constraints of an experimental
design in ecological settings.

Design
We sought to test the influence of mind mapping on learning in the real classroom context.
For this purpose, we used a repeated measure design: Each student was exposed to two learning
strategies, i.e., testing and testing þ mind mapping. This design makes possible to measure how
the learning strategy impacts each student’s learning. The study strategies were administered
during 10 lessons divided into two separate consecutive periods of learning, referred to as series,
each series consisting of 5 lessons on the same subject (Figure 1). The order the learning strat-
egies used in the classroom was randomly counterbalanced across classes: Three classes (54 stu-
dents) were subject to testing þ mind mapping in the 5 lessons of series 1 and testing only
in the 5 lessons of series 2 (group 1), and two classes (34 students) were subject to testing only
in the 5 lessons of series 1 and testing þ mind mapping in the 5 lessons of series 2 (group 2).
All the classes were evaluated before and after each series of 5 lessons (identical pre-learning
and post-learning assessments), in order to measure their progress with each of the two learning
strategies. To reduce the impact of prior knowledge, we created two groups paired as a function
of the grade the students obtained in the pre-learning test in both series. To do so, we selected
34 students of the group 1 (out of 54 students) who were strictly paired to 34 students of the
group 2 .
 THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION 5

Procedure
We gave the teachers a protocol with an exact description of the steps to follow when applying
the learning strategies of interest, namely testing and mind mapping. The two teachers agreed on
the procedure, form and content of the mind map construction and on the precise questions to
ask during testing. They taught strictly the same content, in 5 lessons per series over the same
period of time. Each lesson lasted 55 minutes and took place once a week. The 5 lessons of series
1 and the 5 lessons of series 2 were separated by a holiday period (Figure 1). Before the first pre-
learning assessment, the students were informed about their participation in the experiment and
its anonymity. Neither the teachers nor the students were informed about the results of the vari-
ous assessments until the end of the experiment.

Learning phase
All the students attended five lessons per series. The 2 series of lessons focused on the concept of
biodiversity. Series 1 addressed biodiversity at different scales through 3 main axes: The species
(common traits, phenotype, heredity), the support of hereditary information (chromosomes,
DNA, genes, alleles) and biodiversity within a species (fertilization, meiosis, mutations and
mitosis). Series 2 dealt with biodiversity as a result of evolution in 3 stages: Biodiversity (species,
characters, possible reproduction), family ties (common characters, ancestral characters, new char-
acters) and evolutionary mechanisms (genetic drifts, natural selection).

Testing. Testing took place at the end of each lesson and lasted a maximum of five minutes. The
test consisted of four questions including two questions on the lesson taught that day (D), one
about the previous lesson (D-1), one about lesson D-2, etc. The questions were posed orally by
the teacher and required a short, written answer. The teachers gave immediate feedback on each
question. If all four answers were correct, students received a bonus score on their total grade at
the end of the term in the life and earth sciences domain.

Testing þ Mind Mapping. The test was exactly the same as in the testing only condition.
However, in this condition, the students also had to draw, during 5 minutes, a mind map repre-
senting the content of the lesson of the day. Each student received the following precise instruc-
tions on how to draw the mind map: Use a pencil and a blank white 21  29.7 cm sheet of paper,
put the central notion of the series of lessons in the center of the sheet and then draw branches
(with arrows) corresponding to the content of each lesson associated with a single keyword, illus-
trate the keywords with images or selected drawings. To help them, at the beginning of the first
lesson of the series, teachers showed the students the mind map of a completely unrelated lesson
in order to bring out the key concepts (chain of concepts around a central idea, Willis &
Miertschin, 2006). Moreover, the teachers have designed their lessons in such a way that the key
concepts emerge very clearly: Each series had 3 main axes, leading to the development of 3 or 4
main branches in the mind map. Finally, teachers did not propose a correction during the devel-
opment of the mind map, but they supported and guided the students who had difficulty identi-
fying the important points of the lesson.

Pre-Learning and Post-Learning Assessments

In each of the two series, students were evaluated collectively in their classroom before the
teacher started the first lesson (pre-learning assessment) and at the end of the fifth lesson of the
series with the same evaluation (post-learning assessment). To avoid bias, senior earth and life
science teachers from a different school elaborated the tests (one for each series) based on the
content of the lessons and graded them. They were instructed to create a typical school evaluation
6 N. GAVENS ET AL.

Table 1. Mean (Standard deviations) grades at pre-learning and post-learning as a function of learning strategy in the
two series.
Testing with mind mapping Testing only
Pre-learning Post-learning Pre-learning Post-learning
Series 1 Group 1 Group 1 Group 2 Group 2
2.46 (1.96) 6.43 (3.97) 2.37 (2.01) 5.31 (2.78)
Series 2 Group 2 Group 2 Group 1 Group 1
2.68 (2.34) 8.19 (4.21) 2.46 (1.96) 9.62 (4.06)

in order to assess students’ level of learning. Importantly, the senior teachers who assessed the
outcomes were blind to the goal of the experiment and to the learning strategy used during the
lessons. It is worth noting that the two teachers of the classes involved in the study were not
aware of the content of the tests. They were asked to leave the classroom during the assessments
and students were asked not to refer to the content of the pre-learning assessment to them.
Research assistants administered the pre-learning and post-learning assessments, which were lim-
ited to 20 minutes. The assessments tested both the skills and knowledge through 4 questions and
were rated on a scale of 0 to 20 (5 points per question). They consisted of documents to be ana-
lyzed accompanied by instructions. For example, for series 1 on heritability of characters, the test
required the student to analyze a family tree, a karyotype, photographs of cell division or the
schema of meiosis and to use these documents to explain the chromosomal characteristics of cer-
tain cells or the phenomenon of heredity. We calculated Cronbach’s alpha on the post-test
responses for series 1 and for series 2. The results indicated that the items have acceptable item
consistency for the series 1 (a ¼ .72) and poor for the series 2 (a ¼ .58). As noted above, the
assessment is a typical school evaluation and not a standardized tool.

Results
Based on an a priori power analysis, with an alpha ¼ .05 a power ¼ .08 and a medium effect size
˛2 ¼ .05, the needed sample size was of 82 participants. The equality of variance for the two
groups has been calculated with the Brown-Forsythe test. The population variance was equal at
the pretests of series 1 (F(1,66) ¼ 0.009, p ¼ .92) and series 2 (F(1,66) ¼ .15, p ¼ .7), at the
post-test of series 2 (F(1,66) ¼ .0005, p ¼ .98) but unequal at the post-test of series 1 (F(1,66) ¼
6.1, p ¼ .01). A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test indicated that the grades of the two groups follow a
similar distribution at the pretest of series 1 (D(34) ¼ .05, p > .10) and series 2 (D(34) ¼ .02,
p > .10) and at the post-test of series 1(D(34)¼.29, p > .10) and series 2 (D(34) ¼ .26), p >.10.
The descriptive statistics at the pre- and post-learning assessments of series 1 and series 2 are
displayed in Table 1.
The grades of the 68 students were subjected to an analysis of variance (ANOVA), with par-
ticipant group (group 1 vs. group 2) as a between-subject variable and series (1 vs. 2) and time of
test (pre vs. post-learning) as within-subjects variables. Figure 2 shows the average grades for
each series as a function of group and time of test.
As expected, the time effect was significant (F(1,66) ¼ 267.6739, p < .0001, ˛2 ¼ .8) as stu-
dents progressed between pre and post-learning assessment (2.49 vs. 7.39). Students in group 1
progressed more (2.46 vs. 8.02) than students group 2 (2.52 vs. 6.75), as shown by the time x
group interaction, F(1,66) ¼ 4.99, p ¼.028, ˛2 ¼ .07. Moreover, their progress was greater in ser-
ies 2 (2.57 vs. 8.9) than in series 1 (2.41 vs. 5.87), the time x series interaction was significant
(F(1,66) ¼ 35.09, p < .0001, ˛2 ¼ .34). More importantly, we observed that the increase in the
students’ grades between pre- and post-learning assessment in series 1 and 2 did not vary as a
function of participant group; the series x time x group interaction was not significant, F < 1, ˛2
¼ .006. We conducted further analyses separately for each series. In series 1, progress was slightly
 THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION 7

Figure 2. Mean scores (grades) for the two series as a function of the group and time of test.
Notes. In series 1, group 1 used mind mapping plus testing whereas group 2 used testing alone. In series 2, group 1 used testing
alone whereas group 2 used mind mapping plus testing.

greater with the learning strategy testing þ mind mapping (2.46 vs. 6.42 in pre and post-learning
assessment) than with the learning strategy testing only (2.37 vs. 5.31 in pre and post-learning
assessment), but the group x time interaction was not reliable (F(1,66) ¼ 1.99, p > .10, ˛2 ¼ .02).
In contrast, in series 2, progress was significantly greater with testing only (2.46 vs. 9.62 in pre
and post-learning assessment) than with the learning strategy testing þ mind mapping (2.68 vs.
8.19 in pre and post-learning assessment); the group x time interaction was reliable but the size
effect was moderate, F(1,66) ¼ 4.12, p < .05, ˛2 ¼ .05.

Discussion
The aim of the present study was to test whether the mind mapping adds a supplementary learn-
ing benefit to testing alone. We compared two learning strategies in a given period of teaching
on ninth graders in a secondary school: Testing with mind mapping and testing alone. The main
result is that the mind mapping does not add any supplementary benefit to testing, as suggested
by the absence of the series x time x group interaction. The progress made by students between
the pre-learning and post-learning assessments was similar in the two experimental conditions,
i.e., mind mapping plus testing versus testing alone. Given that the results of the students at the
post-learning are quite low (below a mean of 10 out of 20), they had room for improvement.
Consequently, the absence of added value of the mind mapping cannot be explained by reaching
the maximum score. Moreover, in series 2, the students’ progress was significantly greater when
they learned with the test only than with the test combined with mind mapping. This result sug-
gests that in series 2, mind mapping not only had no added benefit to learning, but on the con-
trary, slightly reduced the students’ performance. Looking at the cognitive processes involved in
memorization and learning can shed some light on this pattern of results. In fact, testing involves
a retrieval process of the information in memory, which reinforces the storage of information.
This strategy requires the learner to make an effort to retrieve the information whose memory
traces decline with time, thereby engaging the learner in the learning process. More generally,
efficient learning strategies are those that involve the retrieval of knowledge and the effort needed
to do so (Cepeda et al., 2008). Our results could be accounted for by the fact that the to-be-
8 N. GAVENS ET AL.

learned content is more often available: If the mind map is regularly used as the lesson pro-
gresses, it prevents memory traces from declining and thus hinders the retrieval effort.
The results of the present study do not confirm the effectiveness of mind mapping for learning
in real classroom conditions, and to date, there is no solid evidence in the literature justifying its
use in pedagogical practice. This lack of evidence contrasts with its popularity among teachers
since the 1960s when Buzan introduced the concept of mind mapping with the argument that it
is the simplest technique for introducing and retrieving information from the brain (Buzan,
2002). As pointed out by Liu et al. (2014), the mind map is supposed to reflect the elaboration of
thought and the functioning of the brain (Stankovic et al., 2011) because it mobilizes the learner’s
commitment. Therefore, the mind map has become a very popular tool for students and is con-
sidered to be efficient by teachers in developing students’ long-term memory and creativity
(Keles, 2012). Faced with students who are reluctant to learn, teachers may be attracted by a
learning technique that gives the learner the feeling of knowing. Despite improving the learners’
motivation, this is comparable with the so-called illusion of knowing (Brown et al., 2014). When
students use mind maps, they have a feeling of familiarity that gives them an illusion of mastery
when visualizing it. However, visualization is not sufficient to guarantee acquisition of the
information.
Despite our best efforts in carefully complying with the requirements of an experimental study,
we acknowledge four main limitations inherent to ecological data collection. First, even though
both teachers followed strictly the same protocol, it was not possible to control the way the stu-
dents perceived their pedagogical support and caring. Indeed perceptions of caring teachers are
related to students’ academic effort. Further research should control for psychosocial variables
describing the student functioning in the class (Wentzel, 1997). Second, we did not analyze the
content of the mind maps produced by the students. However, teachers were instructed to give
feedback in such a way that students build a correct structure of the mind map and add appro-
priate illustrations. Moreover, the standardization of the instruction concerning the construction
of the mind map as well as the very explicit structure of the lessons were likely to lead to com-
parable contents of mind maps. Third, we acknowledge that the present results are limited to a
specific population of students enrolled in a priority education secondary school. The students
come mainly from families with low socio-economic backgrounds and face a variety of social
and/or academic difficulties. Finally, the size of the sample was relatively low, too. However, the
rigorous methodology of a randomized controlled trial, the “gold-standard methodology” in edu-
cational research (Torgerson & Torgerson, 2001), might overcome these limitations. We believe
that the design that we employed in the study has several strengths important to emphasize: The
two groups of students were similar as far as the baseline performance is concerned as they were
strictly paired on the grade they obtained in the pre-learning assessment; the design used repeated
measures, meaning that each participant served as its own control; the senior teachers from a dif-
ferent school who assessed the outcomes were blind to the intervention assignment. In conclu-
sion, despite these limitations, our results call for caution when considering using mind mapping
for learning purposes in the sense of acquiring knowledge. It is in this sense that our study
defends evidence-based education principles.

Disclosure statement
None.

Funding
This work was supported by the Scientific Interest Group of the Faculty of education and lifelong learning,
University of Strasbourg and by the Bonus Quality Search of the University of Upper Alsace.This work was
 THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION 9

supported by the Scientific Interest Group of the Faculty of education and lifelong learning, University of
Strasbourg and by the Bonus Quality Search of the University of Upper Alsace.

ORCID
Nathalie Gavens http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4210-9448
Nad
ege Doignon-Camus http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0295-2801

Data availability
Data can be made available upon request to authors.

References
Agarwal, P. K., Bain, P. M., & Chamberlain, R. W. (2012). The value of applied research: Retrieval practice
improves classroom learning and recommendations from a teacher, a principal, and a scientist. Educational
Psychology Review, 24(3), 437–448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-012-9210-2
Abi-El-Mona, I., & Adb-El-Khalick, F. (2008). The influence of mind mapping on eighth graders’ science achieve-
ment. School Science and Mathematics, 108(7), 298–312. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2008.tb17843.x
Biktimirov, E. N., & Nilson, L. B. (2006). Show them the money: Using mind mapping in the introductory finance
course. Journal of Financial Education, 32, 72–86.
Binks, S. (2018). Testing enhances learning: A review of the literature. Journal of Professional Nursing: Official
Journal of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 34(3), 205–210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.
2017.08.008
Brown, P. C., Roediger, H. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2014). Make it stick. University Press.
Buzan, T. (2002). How to Mind Map: The ultimate thinking tool that will change your life. Thorsons.
Buzan, T. (2005). Mind map: The ultimate thinking tool. Thorston.
Buzan, T., & Buzan, B. (1993). The mind map book. BBC Books.
Buzan, T., & Buzan, B. (2006). The mind map book. Educational Publishers LLP.
Cepeda, N. J., Vul, E., Rohrer, D., Wixted, J. T., & Pashler, H. (2008). Spacing effects in learning: A temporal
ridgeline of optimal retention. Psychological Science, 19(11), 1095–1102. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.
02209.x
Chang, Y. H., Chang, C. Y., & Tseng, Y. H. (2010). Trends of science education research: an automatic content
analysis. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 19(4), 315–331. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-009-9202-2
Chiou, C. C. (2008). The effect of concept mapping on students’ learning achievements and interests. Innovations
in Education and Teaching International, 45(4), 375–387.
Chularut, P., & DeBacker, T. K. (2004). The influence of concept mapping on achievement, self-regulation, and
self-efficacy in students of English as a second language. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29(3), 248–263.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2003.09.001
Daley, B. J., & Torre, D. M. (2010). Concept maps in medical education: an analytical literature review. Medical
Education, 44(5), 440–448. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2010.03628.x
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning
with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology.
Psychological Science in the Public Interest : a Journal of the American Psychological Society, 14(1), 4–58. https://
doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
Eriksson, L. T., & Hauer, A. M. (2004). Mind mapping marketing: A creative approach in developing marketing
skills. Journal of Marketing Education, 26(2), 174–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0273475304265634
Farrand, P., Hussain, F., & Hennessy, E. (2002). The efficacy of the ’mind map’ study technique. Medical
Education, 36(5), 426–431. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2923.2002.01205.x
Holley, C. D., Dansereau, D. F., McDonald, B. A., Garland, J. C., & Collins, K. W. (1979). Evaluation of a hierarch-
ical mapping technique as an aid to prose processing. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 4(3), 227–237.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-476X(79)90043-2
Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval practice produces more learning than elaborative studying with con-
cept mapping. Science (New York, N.Y.), 331(6018), 772–775. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1199327
€ (2012). Elementary teachers’ views on mind mapping. International Journal of Education, 4(1), 93–100.
Keles, O.
Liu, Y., Zhao, G., Ma, G., & Bo, Y. (2014). The effect of mind mapping on teaching and learning: A meta-analysis.
Standard Journal of Education and Essay, 2(1), 17–31.
10 N. GAVENS ET AL.

Mayer, R. E. (2008). Learning and instruction (2nd ed.). Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Merchie, E., & Van Keer, H. (2016). Mind mapping as a meta-learning strategy: Stimulating pre-adolescents’ text-
learning strategies and performance? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 46, 128–147. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.cedpsych.2016.05.005
Miyatsu, T., Nguyen, K., & McDaniel, M. A. (2018). Five popular study strategies: their pitfalls and optimal imple-
mentations. Perspectives on Psychological Science: A Journal of the Association for Psychological Science, 13(3),
390–407. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617710510
Nesbit, J. C., & Adesope, O. O. (2006). Learning with concept and knowledge maps: A meta-analysis. Review of
Educational Research, 76(3), 413–448. https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543076003413
Nettleship, J. (1992). Active learning in economics: Mind maps and wall charts. Economics, 28(118), 69–71.
Pudelko, B., Young, M., Vincent-Lamarre, P., & Charlin, B. (2012). Mapping as a learning strategy in health pro-
fessions education: A critical analysis. Medical Education, 46(12), 1215–1225. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.
12032
Roediger, H. L., III, & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term
retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
Roediger, H. L., III, Agarwal, P. K., McDaniel, M. A., & McDermott, K. B. (2011). Test-enhanced learning in the
classroom: long-term improvements from quizzing. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Applied, 17(4), 382–395.
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026252
Stankovic, N., Besic, C., Papic, M., & Aleksic, V. (2011). The evaluation of using mind maps in teaching. Technics
Technologies Education Management, 6(2), 337–343.
Torgerson, C. J., & Torgerson, D. J. (2001). The need for randomised controlled trials in educational research.
British Journal of Educational Studies, 49(3), 316–328. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8527.t01-1-00178
Wentzel, K. R. (1997). Student motivation in middle school: The role of perceived pedagogical caring. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 89(3), 411–419.
Willis, C. L., & Miertschin, S. L. (2006). Mind maps as active learning tools. Journal of Computing Sciences in
Colleges, 21(4), 266–272.