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Impact of Concept Mapping on Students’ Retention of Accounting Knowledge in Nigerian Polytechnics

Abstract

Concept mapping is an instructional strategy that enables students to organize, connect, and visually represent relationships among concepts, principles, and ideas within a subject area. In accounting education, students are required to understand and retain interconnected concepts involving transaction analysis, double-entry bookkeeping, financial reporting, taxation, auditing, costing, financial management, and other accounting principles. However, conventional accounting instruction may emphasize memorization, note-taking, and teacher-centred explanations, which may provide limited opportunities for students to organize accounting knowledge meaningfully and retain it over time. Concept Mapping provides students with opportunities to identify key accounting concepts, establish relationships among them, organize information hierarchically, and visually represent connections between related accounting principles and procedures. Against this background, this study investigates the impact of concept mapping on students' retention of accounting knowledge in Nigerian polytechnics. The study will be anchored on Ausubel's Meaningful Learning Theory, Constructivist Learning Theory, and Information Processing Theory. Meaningful Learning Theory emphasizes the integration of new knowledge with relevant existing cognitive structures, making concept mapping particularly suitable for organizing and connecting accounting concepts. Constructivist Learning Theory emphasizes active participation, prior knowledge, interaction, and the construction of knowledge through meaningful learning experiences. Information Processing Theory explains learning and retention in terms of how information is encoded, organized, stored, and retrieved from memory. Collectively, these theoretical perspectives provide a suitable framework for explaining how concept mapping may influence students' retention of accounting knowledge. The study will adopt a quantitative quasi-experimental or analytical cross-sectional research design. The study population will comprise accounting education students enrolled in selected federal, state, and private polytechnics across Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique will be used to select geopolitical zones, states, polytechnics, schools or departments, levels of study, classes, and eligible accounting education students. Concept mapping will be assessed using indicators such as frequency of concept-mapping activities, identification of key accounting concepts, hierarchical organization of concepts, use of linking words, identification of relationships among accounting concepts, construction of accounting concept maps, lecturer-guided mapping, student-generated maps, collaborative concept mapping, individual concept mapping, digital concept-mapping activities, revision using concept maps, integration of prior and new accounting knowledge, feedback on concept maps, and opportunities for repeated concept-mapping practice. Students' retention of accounting knowledge will be assessed using indicators such as delayed recall of accounting concepts, accurate explanation of accounting principles, retention of transaction-processing procedures, recall of financial reporting principles, retention of auditing concepts, taxation knowledge retention, costing concepts, ability to recognize relationships among accounting concepts, application of previously learned accounting knowledge to new situations, accuracy in answering delayed achievement tests, and consistency of accounting performance over time. Data will be collected using structured questionnaires, standardized accounting knowledge retention tests, immediate achievement tests, delayed post-tests, student-generated concept maps, concept-map assessment rubrics, observation checklists, and pre-test and post-test assessments where a quasi-experimental design is adopted. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize students' demographic and academic characteristics, concept-mapping experiences, learning activities, and levels of accounting knowledge retention. Inferential statistical techniques, including chi-square tests, paired and independent t-tests, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis where appropriate, will be used to determine the impact of concept mapping on students' retention of accounting knowledge. Where a quasi-experimental design is adopted, students' immediate and delayed accounting knowledge scores may be compared with those of a comparison group receiving conventional accounting instruction to determine changes associated with concept mapping. Diagnostic tests will also be conducted to assess the reliability, validity, and robustness of the findings. The study is expected to find that concept mapping has a significant positive impact on students' retention of accounting knowledge in Nigerian polytechnics. Students exposed to systematic concept-mapping activities are expected to demonstrate better long-term retention of accounting concepts than students taught primarily through conventional instructional approaches. Concept mapping may help students organize complex accounting information into meaningful structures and recognize relationships among concepts that might otherwise be learned as isolated topics. Mapping relationships between transactions, accounting principles, financial statements, adjustments, auditing procedures, taxation concepts, and costing principles may strengthen students' ability to retrieve and apply previously learned knowledge. Repeated construction and revision of concept maps may also encourage active learning, reflection, integration of prior knowledge, and deeper conceptual understanding. Collaborative mapping activities may provide additional opportunities for students to discuss accounting relationships, explain concepts to peers, identify misconceptions, and reinforce learning through interaction. Digital concept-mapping tools may further facilitate organization, revision, and storage of students' accounting knowledge. However, inadequate instructional time, limited lecturer training, large class sizes, lack of digital facilities, students' unfamiliarity with concept mapping, difficulty in constructing accurate relationships among accounting concepts, and limited access to appropriate concept-mapping tools may reduce its effectiveness. The study therefore expects structured, learner-centred, feedback-oriented, and appropriately supervised concept-mapping activities to contribute significantly to improved retention of accounting knowledge among students in Nigerian polytechnics. The study is expected to contribute to the literature on concept mapping, accounting knowledge retention, accounting education, meaningful learning, constructivist learning, information processing, instructional strategies, accounting pedagogy, conceptual understanding, learning retention, and polytechnic education in Nigeria. The findings will provide useful information to the National Board for Technical Education, polytechnics, accounting education departments, accounting educators, curriculum developers, and policymakers regarding strategies for improving accounting teaching and learning. The study will also provide evidence-based recommendations for integrating concept mapping into accounting education programmes, training accounting educators in effective concept-mapping techniques, developing accounting-specific concept-mapping activities, incorporating digital mapping tools where available, using concept maps for revision and formative assessment, encouraging collaborative and student-generated concept maps, providing continuous feedback on students' maps, and aligning concept-mapping activities with the development and long-term retention of accounting knowledge in Nigerian polytechnics.

Keywords: Concept mapping, accounting knowledge retention, accounting education students, meaningful learning, constructivist learning, information processing, conceptual understanding, instructional strategies, accounting pedagogy, learning retention, Nigerian polytechnics, Nigeria.