Mind Maps for Medical Students

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Would be easier to annotate and read fluently if the printing was done in a normal upright position. Mind maps, in contrast, use a central theme in the middle of a page with categories and subcategories that radiate peripherally, thus making them truly non-linear. In addition, no significant differences in MCAT biology, physics, and verbal subscores between groups were found.

I have always drawn my own mind maps but this has saved me a lot of time and effort which I can dedicate back to pure studying. Unlike the quiz scores, the difference z score conforms to a Gaussian distribution as demonstrated in Figure 5. This demonstrates that medical students using mind maps can successfully retrieve information in the short term, and does not put them at a disadvantage compared to SNT students. However, in subjects who were unfamiliar with mind mapping, a short 30-minute presentation on the strategy allowed them to score similarly to subjects in the SNT group who used strategies that have been firmly established. With real-time collaboration and presentation mode, MindMeister is perfect for group projects and study sessions.

They recommended that future concept map studies should allow subjects to create concept maps on multiple occasions.

Although not supported by other literature, this finding may be explained by the fact that students were not given adequate time to adjust to using the mind map technique, and therefore, may have felt less comfortable using it. The authors also developed a method to score the mind maps based on structure and content; however, they did not describe the method nor did they provide any data to support it[ 26].Based on their findings, the authors concluded that mind mapping may not be effective in improving retention of short-term information[ 26]. Recently, Srinivasan et al[ 24] reported that concept map scores significantly increased in physicians who created concept maps on two separate occasions.

This difference was not significant and this finding demonstrates that both groups had similar baseline critical thinking abilities as measured by the HSRT. Mind mapping was developed by Tony Buzan[ 19] and the inspiration for this strategy arose from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci[ 20]. Willingham[ 15] stated that critical thinking occurs when a student penetrates beyond the surface structure of a problem and recognizes how the problem can be solved, and in addition, possesses the content knowledge integral to solving the problem. A two-tailed independent samples t test revealed a significant difference between the means of the z score difference: t (129 df) = 2.

When looking at questions 6 through 10 on quiz 2, the mean score among subjects in the SNT group was 3.