Abstract

Concept maps (CM) are powerful tools which have different uses in educational contexts; however, this study limited its extension and explored its impact on the reading comprehension skill of Iranian EFL students. To this purpose, a proficiency test was employed and 90 intermediate pre-university students were chosen and divided into three groups: learner constructed CM group, fill in the map CM group, and summarizing strategy group. The whole study was conducted within three months. At the beginning of the study, a reading comprehension test (as a pre test) was administered to measure the comprehension ability of the subjects. During the five-session treatment period, the assigned strategies were taught and practiced in each group. Then, another reading comprehension test (as a post test) was employed to compare the effect of treatment on the comprehension skill. The results of the study showed that despite the efficacy of all three strategies, the fill in the map version of CM was the most influencing one. It suggested that in general, CM technique might be regarded as an alternative or even as an effective replacement of the summarizing strategy for reading comprehension skill.

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