Concept map has been widely used as an interactive media to deliver contents in learning. Incorporating concept maps into collaborative learning could promote more interactive and meaningful learning environments. Furthermore, delivering concept maps in a digital form, such as in Kit-Build concept map, could improve learning interaction further. Collaborative learning with Kit-Build concept map has been shown to have positive effects on students' understanding. The way students compose their concept maps while discussing with others is presumed to affect their learning. However, supporting collaborative learning in an online setting is formidable to keep the interaction meaningful and fluid. This study proposed a new approach of real-time collaborative learning with Kit-Build concept map. This study also investigated how concept map recomposition with Kit-Build concept map could help students collaboratively learn EFL reading comprehension from a distance by comparing it with the traditional open-ended concept mapping approach. The learning effect and students' conversation during collaboration with the proposed online Kit-Build concept map system were investigated. Comparative analysis with a traditional collaborative concept mapping approach is also presented. The results suggested that collaborative learning with Kit-Build concept map yielded better outcomes and more meaningful discussion than the traditional open-end concept mapping.

This study investigated the influence of reading time while building a closed concept map on reading comprehension and retention. It also investigated the effect of having access to the text during closed concept map creation on reading comprehension and retention. Participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk (N =101) read a text, took an after-text test, and took part in one of three conditions, “Map & Text”, “Map only”, and “Double Text”, took an after-activity test, followed by a two-week retention period and then one final delayed test. Analysis revealed that higher reading times were associated with better reading comprehension and better retention. Furthermore, when comparing “Map & Text” to the “Map only” condition, short-term reading comprehension was improved, but long-term retention was not improved. This suggests that having access to the text while building closed concept maps can improve reading comprehension, but long term learning can only be improved if students invest time accessing both the map and the text.

Involving higher-order thinking in learning activities can produce meaningful learning. It impacts the student's ability to solve problems in new situations. Concept mapping is a learning strategy that has been proven to promote higher-order thinking. Concept map recomposition (KB-mapping) in the Kit-Build system is a closed concept mapping where learners are given concepts and links to build a concept map, and it has advantage that the recomposed map can be automatically diagnosed. It has been proven that KB-mapping improves the students' learning achievement similar to the traditional concept mapping called scratch concept map composition (SC-mapping). However, the study on the effect of KB-mapping in fostering students' higher-order thinking has yet to be evaluated. This study designed and conducted an experiment to compare the impact of KB-mapping and SC-mapping on promoting students' ability in higher-order thinking. Fifty-four undergraduate students were assigned to either KB-Mapping or SC-Mapping for learning activities. The result of this study suggested that students who learn with KB-mapping had better abilities to solve questions of higher-order thinking than those who applied SC-mapping. The findings also suggested that the quality of students' concept maps affected their performance in solving higher-order thinking questions.

This study investigates the efficacy of a partial decomposition approach in concept map recomposition tasks to reduce cognitive load while maintaining the benefits of traditional recomposition approaches. Prior research has demonstrated that concept map recomposition, involving the rearrangement of unconnected concepts and links, can enhance reading comprehension. However, this task often imposes a significant burden on learners’ working memory. To address this challenge, this study proposes a partial recomposition approach where learners are tasked with recomposing only a portion of the concept map, thereby reducing the problem space. The proposed approach aims at lowering the cognitive load while maintaining the benefits of traditional recomposition task, that is, learning effect and motivation. To investigate the differences in cognitive load, learning effect, and motivation between the full decomposition (the traditional approach) and partial decomposition (the proposed approach), we have conducted an experiment (N=78) where the participants were divided into two groups of “full decomposition” and “partial decomposition”. The full decomposition group was assigned the task of recomposing a concept map from a set of unconnected concept nodes and links, while the partial decomposition group worked with partially connected nodes and links. The experimental results show a significant reduction in the embedded cognitive load of concept map recomposition across different dimensions while learning effect and motivation remained similar between the conditions. On the basis of these findings, educators are recommended to incorporate partially disconnected concept maps in recomposition tasks to optimize time management and sustain learner motivation. By implementing this approach, instructors can conserve cognitive resources and allocate saved energy and time to other activities that enhance the overall learning process.