Effectiveness of conceptual map, cooperative learning and traditional teaching methods on the incentive to progress and academic achievement in biology course

The aim of this research was to investigate about the effect of conceptual map, cooperative learning and traditional methods on the achievement of motivation and academic achievement in biology course. The statistical population included all of the male students in experimental field of Varamin suburbs. In a queasy-experimental study, 60 students were selected by multi-step cluster sampling method and randomly assigned into three groups. The experimental groups separately had 15 sessions of education by conceptual map and cooperative learning methods and the control group was educated by traditional method. All of the groups completed the Hermans’s achievement motivation questionnaire (1970) and the teacher-made test as the pre-test and post-test. The data was analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). The findings showed that conceptual map method unlike traditional method led to increase achievement of motivation and academic achievement. Also, cooperative learning method unlike traditional method led to increase academic achievement, but between them in achieving motivation, there were no significant differences. In addition, conceptual map method comparing with cooperative learning method led to increase academic achievement, but there were no significant differences between them in achieving motivation (p < 0.05). Therefore, conceptual map method was more effective than cooperative learning and traditional methods.