Abstract
The literature of concept maps focuses predominantly on the hierarchical structure, leaving the impacts of schematic maps commonly seen in social studies relatively unclear. Using two articles on the most important historical event in Taiwan–228 Incident–as reading materials, this study investigated how presenting different formations of concept maps may affect students’ construction of mental representations for the articles. The findings indicated that the provision of concept maps helped students to develop global and local coherent comprehension for the contents, but the inappropriately designed maps may exert negative influences on students’ learning. This study suggested that teachers should avoid turning concept maps into an object for memorization, and encourage students to experiment with constructing different formations of concept maps in order to create flexible representations for the learning materials.