The effect of a metacognitive strategy of instruction on the anxiety level of students in science classes

The search for more effective, alternative instructional strategies has led to focusing attention on the metacognitive strategy of concept mapping. The heuristic of concept mapping assists learners in understanding concepts and relationships between them and seeing the hierarchical conceptual propositional nature of knowledge. While the search for the enhancement of meaningful learning through metacognition is being intensified, there is a need to relate it to other classroom climate variables that could hamper the total classroom functioning of a student in the learning of science. This study investigated the relationship between the concept mapping heuristic and anxiety‐a variable that has been found to have a militating effect on learning. A total of 51 senior secondary school students formed the sample of the study. Using a pre‐post‐test experimental design, the experimental subjects had a 6‐week treatment of learning selected science concepts through the concept mapping strategy. Analysis of the data collected showed the instructional strategy involving concept mapping to be effective and to lead to a significant lowering in students’ anxiety towards the study of science.