Mind Research and Skills Mapping
Submission date: 23rd October 2015 Submitted to: Joseph A. Egan Submitted by: A00228999 A00234230 A00234760 A00236540 This project / assignment is submitted in part fulfilment of the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Accounting, part of the Learning Development of Higher Education subject in first year, at Athlone Institute of Technology.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY After doing this project we learned a lot about the mind and how it works. We found new techniques on how to improve your brain and mental health and certain things you can do in your daily life that will keep your mental health and brain on the healthy side. Also while doing this project, we learned a lot about mind maps and how they can serve a purpose in our everyday lives. They are very helpful for a range of things such as learning notes from a lecture to facing and solving problems. For this project primary and secondary sources of information are what we planned on using. For our primary source, we made up a questionnaire and handed it out to a small number of students around the college. From doing this questionnaire we learned that many students didn’t know what mind maps are and will use them now that they know what they are and how helpful they are. For our secondary sources to look up information we used the internet and books from the college library. We found out how mind maps are used and where they can benefit us. From doing this project we seen how helpful mind maps are and would recommend them to any students who are studying in college.
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DECLARATION OF AUTHENTICITY We hereby declare that this submission is our own work and to the best of our knowledge it contains no plagiarised material. We declare that all material presented are our own work, or fully and specifically acknowledged wherever adapted from other sources. This work contains no materials previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other master’s degree, degree, diploma or certificate at any other educational institution, except where the acknowledgement is made in the work by means of the Harvard referencing system. Any contribution made to this work by others, with whom we have worked with, is explicitly acknowledged in the acknowledgements page. We understand that if at any time it is shown that we have significantly misrepresented material presented; any award to us on the basis of that material may be revoked.
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Date: 23/10/15
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to express the deepest appreciation to Professor Joseph A Egan who has been a great help to us throughout this project. He has given us many ideas which helped us improve our project. Without his great guidance on this project this project would not have been possible. We would like to thank all AIT students who participated in our questionnaire. It was from their results that we could base our study. We would like to thank Conor Doherty, a student who is studying psychology, for letting us interview him on this topic.
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DEDICATION Dedicate to friends and family for offering support and love.
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GLOSSARY Theoretical Involves with the theory of an area of study rather than its practical use.
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ABBREVIATIONS Example: AADC Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counsellor Used: BOI Basic Organising Idea
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page
TITLE PAGE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY DECLARATION OF AUTHENTICITY ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS DEDICATION GLOSSARY ABBREVIATIONS TABLE OF CONTENTS 3) INTRODUCTION 4) LITERATURE REVIEW 5) METHODOLOGY 6) DATA ANALYSIS 7) DISCUSSION 8) CONCLUSIONS 9) RECOMMENDATIONS 10) REFERENCES 11) APPENDICES 12) QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN 13) QUESTIONNAIRE RATIONAL 14) SAMPLING / RE-CODING / VALIDITY 15) PILOT TESTING 16) INTERVIEWS 17) FOCUS GROUPS RESEARCH 18) OBSERVATION RESEARCH 19) THINK OUTSIDE BOX 20) EXTRA
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3) INTRODUCTION As part of our Learning and Development project we decide to study mind research and mind mapping. The main aim of our project was to investigate how much students use mind maps and how helpful they can be to students. What Are Mind Maps Mind maps are used to represent ideas visually through graphs. Mind maps help to structure information and it makes it easier to analyse data. Mind mapping are seen as an alternative way to studying from learning off loads of text. Mind mapping is a much more effective way to study. Mind mapping are seen to be more effective as it is structured in a way that resembles much better to how the brain works. Because it is visual and much easier to analyse it engages the brain much more and you retain a lot more information. Source: (Litemind, 2015)
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4) LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction: A literature review is an in-depth evaluation on a specific topic that has already been researched. It includes essential findings, theoretical and mythological contributions to a specific topic. Literature reviews are only secondary sources of research and do not contain any new experimental work. A literature review also allows you to demonstrate your ability of outlining existent knowledge and identify important information. Methods of Research:
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The research done for the literature review was done in different methods. We used the library facilities in AIT, we found books on Tony Buzan and his mind mapping techniques. We also found authors such as Lindy Van Rooyen and Peter Russell, who work with mind maps and the modern mind. Books weren’t our only source, we also used the Internet to find websites on Google Chrome to source information for our research. With our project being on Mind Research Skills Mapping, when we were doing our research we noticed that there was far more information on Mind Maps and so we decided to base our project on Mind Mapping. Origins Of Mind Maps: Tony Buzan is known as the man who invented the Mind Mapping technique. He is also known as an expert on the brain, memory, speed reading and creativity. He has spent over 40 years of his life working on research of the brain, dedicating his life developing techniques to help people think smarter and more creative, and to reach their full potential. Source: (ThinkBuzan, 2015)
Tony Buzan’s best way to describe a mind map is by comparing them to the map of a city. Sitting in the centre represents the most important idea. The main roads coming out of the centre represent the main thoughts in the whole process. So then the secondary roads are the secondary thoughts and so on. All mind maps are similar with some things. They are all very colourful, they all are an outgoing structure starting from the centre. And every line is a curve, with the use of different symbols, shapes and images according to a set of basic brain-friendly rules. Source: (Buzan, 2005) Mind maps are ideal for understanding the correlation between different aspects of a situation. On focusing on small yet vital parts of information rather than long paragraphs, the mind maps helps any person build a strong understanding of any problem, situation. ______________________________________________________________________ Page 11
Mind maps allow an efficient summary of information in a way that makes it both usable and handy. Source: (Illumine Training, 2015) Uses of Mind Maps: When trying to take in information, mind maps puts the information into a form that the brain can easily understand making it’s easier to remember. They can be used for anything from lectures to books, interviews and meetings. When you are faced by a problem, mind maps helps you pick out the issues and show how they are related to one another. They also give a quick overview of you see different views of the situation. Mind maps are very helpful when you are trying to plan something, they get all the important information organised in one place. They can be used for any type of planning, whether you are planning on writing a letter or essay or even a meeting or vacation. Source: (Russell, 2015)
How to Mind Map: When Mind mapping there are four important characteristics to it: 1. Only one key concept, starting in the middle usually as an image. 2. From the middle, you branch out with smaller yet another concept of the key concept. 3. Then smaller branches form from these which hold less important information. 4. When finished altogether a nodal structure should be formed. When creating a mind map is brought into steps: Step 1: Pick your main concept or idea. Step 2: Keep your main structure central and begin to branch out your ideas from the main idea known as Basic Organising Ideas (BOIs). Step 3: Use key words or less detailed ideas that are associated with the BOIs, which are smaller branches of the main branches.
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Step 4: Add any final touches to the mind map to make it more personal such as colours, images, numbers etc. Source: (Emerald Group Publishing, 2015)
5) METHODOLOGY To start this project all 4 members gathered together to have a meeting. We split the project up into different chapters and we delegated all the chapters equally to each individual. We also appointed a team leader. We discussed what we wanted each chapter to contain and then we got to work. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Cover Page Executive Summary Declaration of Authenticity Acknowledgements Table of Contents Introduction Literature Review Methodology Data Analysis Discussion ______________________________________________________________________ Page 13
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Conclusions Recommendations References Questionnaire Design Questionnaire Rationale Sampling/Re-Coding/Validity Pilot Testing Interviews Observation Research Extra Cover Page: In the Cover page we had to outline the, submission date, who we submitted it to and all our student ID numbers. Executive Summary: In this section we gave a quick overview of the project and we outlined our aims for the project. Declaration of Authenticity: We signed our signature here to say this was all our work and there was no plagiarism involved. Acknowledgements: Here we gave credit to the people that answered our questionnaire and the person we interviewed for taking time out to help us. Table of Contents: We showed what pages each chapter was on to make it easier for anyone reading our project. Introduction: We gave a small introduction to what our project was about and gave a small outline to what mind mapping is. Literature Review: We outlined the different types of research we used for our project. Also, we outlined the origins of mind maps and the uses of mind maps and how Tony Buzan was the creator of mind maps. Methodology: Here we outlined what each chapter contained in the project. Data Analysis: We showed our questionnaire and displayed our results in pie charts. We also gave our conclusions on the data we collected. Discussion: In this section we outlined the advantages of using mind maps and we showed a video on how to create a mind map. Conclusions: Here we summarised all the results we got from our survey and how beneficial mind maps can be.
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Recommendations: We gave recommendations on what changes we’d make to the project if we were to do it again. References: We showed all the sources we used in making our project. Questionnaire Design: Here we showed the images of the questionnaire we handed it out to students. Questionnaire Rationale: We outlined our reasons why we included each question in the survey. Sampling/Re-Coding/Validity: Here we outlined what sampling, re-coding and validity were. Pilot Testing: Here we showed how we brainstormed ideas for the questionnaire and pilot tested the survey to see if we could make any improvements. Interviews: Here we showed our interview with the psychologist that we interviewed and displayed the answers he have us. Observation Research: Here we outlined how the project went and how we worked as a team. Extras: Here we displayed our project in a magazine using Issuu.
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6) DATA ANALYSIS What is data analysis? Data analysis is the process of gathering data and then examining the data and coming up with conclusions about the information. We wanted to gather primary data on student’s knowledge of mind mapping. We did this by creating a questionnaire containing eight questions and handed them out to 20 students in the college at different times during the week and different places, to ensure a random sample was taken. Question 1 Do you know what mind mapping is? Results:
Question 2
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If so, how often do you use mind mapping while studying? Results:
Question 3 What method of study would you mainly use? Results:
Question 4 Do you find mind mapping helpful? ______________________________________________________________________ Page 17
Results:
Question 5 What about mind mapping do you find helpful? Results:
Question 6 How did you learn about mind mapping? Results:
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Question 7 Would you recommend mind mapping as an aid to studying to other students? Results:
Question 8 If you don't know what mind mapping is, would you be willing to learn about it and try it while studying? Results:
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Conclusion of data It didn't come as a major surprise to learn that only 40% of the student surveyed know what mind mapping is and only a further 37% use it in their studies. Of those who use mind mapping it’s clear to see they see it as a big benefit to their studies with 88% of students saying they find it helpful and 100% said they would recommend mind mapping to another student. Even those who don't know about mind mapping said they would be willing to learn about it and try it as a study aid.
7) DISCUSSION Mind maps work the way the brain works -- which is not in nice neat lines. Memory is naturally associative, not linear. Any idea probably has thousands of links in your mind. Mind maps allow associations and links to be recorded and reinforced. Ref Source: (Russell, Peter Russell Spirit of Now, 2015) ______________________________________________________________________ Page 20
Origin of MIND MAP "Mind map" was first popularized by British popular psychology author and television personality Tony Buzan, the use of diagrams that visually "map" information using branching and radial maps traces back centuries. These pictorial methods record knowledge and model systems, and have a long history in learning, brainstorming, memory, visual thinking, and problem solving by educators, engineers, psychologists, and others. Source: (MindMaps, n.d.) Advantages of Mind Map Notes. Mind maps help organize information's into a form that is easily assimilated by the brain and easily remembered. They can be used for noting anything -- books, lectures, meetings, interviews. Recall. Whenever information is being retrieved from memory, mind maps allow ideas to be quickly noted as they occur, in an organized manner. There's no need to form sentences and write them out in full. They serve as quick and efficient. Creativity. Whenever you want to encourage creativity, mind maps liberate the mind from linear thinking, allowing new ideas to flow more rapidly. Think of every item in a mind map as the centre of another mind map. Problem solving. Whenever you are confronted by a problem -- professional or personal -- mind maps help you see all the issues and how they relate to each other. They also help others quickly get an overview of how you see different aspects of the situation. Planning. Whenever you are planning something, mind maps help you get all the relevant information down in one place and organize it easily. It can also use for planning a meeting, a day or a vacation. ______________________________________________________________________ Page 21
Presentations. This not only helps to organize the ideas coherently; the visual nature of the map means that someone can read the whole thing in their head as they talk, without ever having to look at a sheet of paper.
Videos of mind map https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLWV0XN7K1g- How to Make a Mind Map - The Basics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wZ5wV5dPZc- How to Mind Map
8) CONCLUSIONS From our study we have realised that mind mapping is not a popular way of studying with students and majority of students don’t know what mind mapping is. Only, 40% of people actually knew what mind mapping is and 63% of people never use mind maps while studying. Mind mapping is actually the least popular way of studying with students. The most popular form of studying is note taking. Note taking is the most popular form of study with 55% with reading also being a popular form of study. Note taking and reading can become very repetitive and boring. This will cause students to switch off and they are not taking in as much information. Students should start using mind maps more ______________________________________________________________________ Page 22
often as they are easier to look at and gather information. Students will be able to remember the data much quicker. This would stop students from losing concentration while studying and as a result they would be more productive with their study time. From our study of mind maps we have realised students should use mind maps more often and use them on a more regular basis. Mind maps make it easier for students to remember information and it is easier to analyse the data. Also through are research we have realised students are willing to learn about mind mapping and would be willing to use them. 83% of students said they would be willing to learn about mind maps and use them in the future. As students are willing to learn about mind mapping I believe that students should be thought more about what mind maps are and how to use them. If more students were advised to use mind maps it may help students increase their grades. From our research we have also discovered that of people that use mind maps 100% of people would recommend them to a friend. This proves that students that use mind maps find the m very helpful and that mind maps really do work and are beneficial if used correctly.
9) RECOMMENDATIONS If we were to do this project again there would be many things I would recommend to improve our project â—? I would have got a wider range of people to use for our questionnaire. For our questionnaire we only asked AIT students at random. If we were to do the questionnaire again I would have asked students outside of AIT also. I also would have handed out the questionnaire to a large sample of lecturers. Doing this we would of got a different perspective to mind mapping other than from students. â—? I also would have interviewed more than 1 person. We only interviewed a psychology student to get his opinion. I would have interviewed more people with different
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backgrounds. If we interviewed a variety of people we would have got more varied and accurate results. â—? I would have had more team meetings. We organised to have a group meeting in the library once a week to discuss any issues. If we were to do this project again I would recommend that we meet daily instead of weekly. This would have allowed us collaborate more and check-up if people were having problems. We could have then solved the problem when it arose rather than waiting a week to solve all problems.
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10) REFERENCES Bibliography (2015). Retrieved from indiana.edu: http://www.indiana.edu/~p1013447/dictionary/recode.htm Buzan, T. (2005). The Ultimate Book of Mind Maps. London: Harper Collins Publishers. Emerald Group Publishing. (2015). Retrieved from Emeraldgrouppublishing.com: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/learning/study_skills/skills/mind_maps. htm Illumine Training. (2015). Retrieved from mindmapping.co.uk: http://www.mindmapping.co.uk/mind-mapping-information-and-advice/mind-mapping-benefitshow-business-needs-are-met-by-properly-structured-mind-maps/ Litemind. (2015). Retrieved from Litemind.com: https://litemind.com/what-is-mindmapping/ MindMaps. (n.d.). Retrieved from MindMaps.net. Research Method Knowledge Base. (2015). Retrieved from socialresearchmethods.net: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/sampling.php Russell, P. (2015). Peter Russell Spirit of Now. Retrieved from Peterrussell.com: http://www.peterrussell.com/MindMaps/Advantages.php Russell, P. (2015). Peter Russell Spirit of Now . Retrieved from Peterrussell.com: http://www.peterrussell.com/MindMaps/Uses.php Russell., P. (n.d.). ThinkBuzan. (2015). Retrieved from Consultancy and Speakers: http://thinkbuzan.com/training/consultancy-and-speakers/tony-buzan/ Validity. (2015). Retrieved from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_(statistics)
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11) APPENDICES Introduction Literature Review Methodology Data Analysis Discussion Conclusions Recommendations
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12) QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN
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Source: Survey Monkey
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13) QUESTIONNAIRE RATIONALE The main purpose of the questionnaire was to find out peoples knowledge and thoughts on mind mapping. We taught the best way to gather that information was through a questionnaire. From it we found students knew very little about mind mapping and its advantages, but were open to learning about mind maps. Q1.Do you know what mind mapping is? It was important for us to know how many of the students actually knew what mind mapping is? Q2.If so, how often do you use mind mapping while studying? We asked this question to see how many of those who know about mind mapping actually use it while they study. Q3.What method of study do you mainly use? This question was important to ask because we need to see how mind mapping compares to other forms of studying, in terms of popularity. Q4.Do you find mind mapping helpful? This was asked this to see whether or not students find mind mapping beneficial. Q5.What about mind mapping do you find helpful? We asked this question to find out what exactly makes mind mapping such a helpful study tool. Q6.How did you learn about mind mapping? We asked this to see where student learnt about mind mapping, because very little students know about mind mapping it’s important to know the places where they can learn about it. Q7.Would you recommend mind mapping as an aid to studying to other students? This was asked to see if they would recommend mind maps to someone else. Q8.If you don't know what mind mapping is, would you be willing to learn about it and try it while studying? We felt this was an important question to ask to see if given the opportunity student would want to learn about mind mapping.
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14) SAMPLING / RE-CODING / VALIDITY Sampling In Statistics, sampling is the process of a selection of individual units (e.g. people organisations) from a population of interest to estimate characteristics of selected population. So by studying these samples, we can measure some properties of the population such as weight, colour. Then we reasonably conclude these results and bring back them back to the population from which they were chosen from. Source: (Research Method Knowledge Base, 2015)
Re-Coding Re-Coding information is the process of the active control process that is involved with short-term memory. It is the most important part of short-term memory as it lets more information work in short-term memory and works more efficient in long-term memory. Source: (indiana.edu, 2015)
Validity In statistics, validity is the term a measurement is founded and how it corresponds to the real world. The validity of a measurement, e.g. a test done in education, is thought out to be the standard in which the measurement claims to be. Validity is important when used in practise as it helps decide what tests should be carried out and it also ensures researchers that they are using the right method that truly constructs in questions. Source: (Validity, 2015)
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15) PILOT TESTING We pilot tested our survey by brainstorming first and drawing up a list of sample questions. We came up with about 20 questions. We then gave it to friends and family for them to see what improvements we could make and what else we could add. After their input we decided we should go with eight questions and they corrected some typos for us. They also helped improve the design of the project. We also decided to make the questionnaire basic for the students answering it. After we gathered the questions we wanted, we created the survey online using https://www.surveymonkey.com. We then handed out 20 of the questionnaires to random students across the campus to get a better spread of results.
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16) INTERVIEWS For our interview, we decided to interview a student who is currently studying psychology before they enter the big world of being a psychologist. The student who we interviewed was a Conor Doherty. Questions: Q: What will your professional discipline be when you graduate and what kind of license will you have? A: When I graduate the discipline/degree that I will have will be a family therapist where I will have a master’s degree in both social work and psychology. As for the license that I will have with my degree is a Certified Family Therapist. Q: How can psychology help people? A: Psychology works in a number of different areas of society that have practical problems. One example of the help it does is that when a person talks to a psychologist, it helps relieve stress as they talk of their problems, also they can overcome depression as they know there is someone listening to their stories and that somebody is there to them which is really helpful for someone who feels alone. Q: What can psychology do to help with people’s minds? A: A persons mind can be overwhelmed with many thoughts and ideas of factors that are in their lives and when someone’s mind is full of thoughts and ideas, it can cause some mental health problems. When someone is suffering from mental health problems they can suffer from depression or other problems like full of stress. Others can have difficulties with thinking straight as their minds are unclear and make things complicated. Psychologist’s helps these people overcome these problems and provide advice from those having difficulties in their lives. Q: How can someone improve the health of their mind? A: Other than talking to a psychologist, there are more ways to improve the health of their mind outside the office of a psychologist. Firstly smoking is terrible for the human body and a really bad habit but for those who smoke can suffer from a disease called dementia which is a brain disease. Research shows that heavy smokers increase the risk of developing dementia in the brain. Another factor that makes a healthy mind is getting the right amount of sleep. Sleep is important in life as getting eight hours sleep at night makes the other sixteen hours of the day go by a lot easier. Also our brains don’t shut off when we are asleep as they are collaborating everything that was learned that day (research shown by Robert Stickgold), so the brain needs as much rest as possible. If you do not get the proper amount of sleep you will be very tired the next day and will have little motivation to get work done. Finally brain training is great for the mind and brain. Usually brain training consists of games on hand held devices, for example on the ______________________________________________________________________ Page 32
Nintendo Ds there was a game called Dr. Kawashima, Brain Training, How Old is Your Brain? This game included many puzzles that helps brain skills such as working memory and decision making speed. I am able to say that these games are great as I have played them in the past and doing tasks on games like these leads to improvements in that area of the brain. And more importantly they are great fun for all ages. Q: How can people damage their mental health? A: Mental Health is different to everybody, something of it as happiness, others as control but overall to have good mental, you need a positive life. Then mental ill health is opposite and prevents happiness in life. This mental ill health can be affected by outside influences such as drugs and alcohol. These substances affect your mood and dampen some moods while erupting others. These substances causes change in your mood and behaviour and in result to that, changes in the brain. Study and research show that these substances affect the chemicals that are in our brains and these chemicals are trying to send messages from our brain. So with interference to these chemicals, the brain does not work properly.
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17) FOCUS GROUPS RESEARCH
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18) OBSERVATION RESEARCH From doing this project we observed that we worked very well as a team. We had weekly meetings and at these meetings we designated all the work to each individual. After each week we reported back to the team leader with the work that was completed. We worked well as a team as each week everybody reported back with their work done. If any problems arrived with any body's work we worked well as a team to solve the problem. We also found it hard to gather information on this topic. We found it difficult to get much information on mind research so most of our project is done on mind mapping. The internet was our best source of information for this project. We used many different websites to gather our information. We decided to base the project and our research on how mind maps are helpful to study and how often students used mind maps. To gather our information for this topic we did a questionnaire and asked students how often they use mind maps.
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19) THINK OUTSIDE BOX
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20) EXTRA
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