A report on “the first Concept Map Design Contest on Infection Prevention and Control”

Background Concept maps are considered not only as a powerful method of meaningful learning, but also as an instrument for evaluating the efficiency of learning. Different inquiries suggest that concept maps by promoting critical thinking and clinical reasoning may play a significant role in increasing adherence to infection prevention methods and therefore reduce healthcare-associated infections. Methods In January 2015, Mashhad Medical Microbiology Student Research Group (MMMSRG) invited all academics from all over Iran to design concept maps trying to answer this focus question: “How can we reduce the Healthcare-associated Infections?” We received about 40 concept maps, from which 29 met our inclusion criteria. All the C-maps were judged based on the designed rubrics, adapted from Novak and Cronin’s scoring criteria with some modifications. Results Among the accepted concept maps, four, which had achieved the most scores and proposed some new ideas in infection prevention and control were chosen as the best concept maps. All the C-maps are available from https://goo.gl/8IEA7i. Conclusion In conclusion, our experience indicates a promising role for concept mapping in IPC. We suggest using C-maps as a method for faster and easier learning of infection prevention and control.