The Effect of Concept Map on Improving English Reading Comprehension Skill of Medical Students’ in General English Language Course for Deep and Permanent Learning

Introduction: This study aimed to investigate the effect of concept map technique for strengthening reading comprehension skill of medical students' in general English language course for deep and permanent learning at North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences. Methods: The current study is a quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test and treatment. The population of this study is 70 medical students at Bojnourd University of Medical Sciences, who were randomly selected in two groups of intervention and control. The intervention group used the concept map as a teaching a learning technique and the control group received the same training materials in the traditional way. Data were analyzed using t-test and SPSS.20 software. Results: As the results revealed there weren't a significant difference at the level of (p =0.05) between the mean scores of both groups in pre-test. On the other hand, the statistical analysis revealed a significant difference at the level of (p =0.05) between the mean scores of both groups in favor of the intervention group in post-test. Conclusions: According to the results of the pretest, it can be concluded that before this study reading comprehension skills of medical students' in general English language course in both intervention and control groups were the same. The result of post-test also revealed that, the concept map is effective in improving reading comprehension skills of medical students' in general English language course.