Investigation of students' cognitive structure in elementary genetics through word association tests

The word association test is one of the commonest and oldest educational tools for investigating the cognitive structure of learners. In this present study, a word association test was used to map the cognitive structure of areas of elementary genetics in first-year biology students. In order to map the structures, relatedness coefficient values and response frequencies were used. The results showed that the students generated many ideas related to given key words. However, they did not appear to see the overall picture as a network of related ideas. Implications for using the word association test in the classroom are discussed.