Design of Web-Based Interactive 3D Concept Maps: A Preliminary Study for an Engineering Drawing Course

Concept map are not a new phenomenon in engineering education and are nowadays used to enhance meaningful learning. In literature a lot of works on the use of the concept maps in education exist, but not many within the interactive context. This study contributes to expand the framework of research on the development of web-based 3D interactive concept maps. They incorporate web-based 3D interactive images that support the learning of abstract and difficult topics in Engineering drawing course, motivating the students and increasing their attention. The effects of different learning strategies (2D concept mapping vs. web-based 3D interactive concept mapping) on the learning outcomes and on the spatial ability are investigated. The results of this study shows that Web-based 3D interactive concept maps compensates spatial ability deficits, that is, helps students who have low spatial ability to build an effective mental representation of the learning content. (c) 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 23:403-411, 2015; View this article online at ; DOI