Concept map as an adjunct tool to teach pathology.

CONTEXT: Concept maps (CMs) were tested for their effectiveness in teaching pathology in a conceptual manner.

AIMS: To correlate the quality of CMs drawn by students with their performance on tests involving clinical problem-solving.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Students were taught "how, why, and so what" about CMs at the start of the course. Each student drew one CM every week and a minimum of ten throughout the course and submitted them for evaluation and corrections. The course which is offered twice a year (approximately 600 students in each class) generates approximately 12,000-13,000 CMs each year. Two thousand nine hundred CMs from 290 students in one class were included in the study. Each CM was scored by three authors independently. The students' scores on the CMs were correlated with their scores on the midterm and final examinations.

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Wilcoxon signed-rank test and Spearman's rank-order correlation.

RESULTS: The mean scores for the CMs at the course's midterm and final were 59% and 69.7%, and the mean scores for the examinations were 76% and 84.2% on the midterm and finals, respectively. There was a highly significant correlation between the CM scores and examination scores (P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSION: CMs proved to be a great tool to teach pathology effectively.