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The use of student‐constructed concept maps in assessment is congruent with the changing emphases set forth by the National Science Education Standards. Authorities have expressed concern about concept map scoring systems and their associated validity and reliability. They favor methods that employ expert/criterion maps as referents and emphasize the use of accurate concept relationships in deriving scores, which have been found to correlate with performance on standardized tests. In this study, student constructed concept maps (n= 17) that emerged from post‐instructional interviews about chlorofluorocarbons were scored against a teacher‐expert map using a scheme weighted for relationships. Interrater reliability for the scoring scheme was high (r= .959). Students' map scores correlated highly with their scores on the California Achievement Test component total (r= .729) and moderately with their Pathfinder index (r= .474), the latter believed to be an excellent measure of structural knowledge. A revised map score, derived only from relationships containing one or more of the concepts employed in Pathfinder analysis, was a statistically significant (p= .031) predictor of the Pathfinder index. The findings of this study support the recommendations of others to use expert referents and emphasize concept relationships in assessing concept maps.

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The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of two different types of interviews-one that did (POSTICM) and one that did not (POSTI) embed a concept-mapping process-to elicit students' postinstructional understandings about chlorofluorocarbons and their role in global atmospheric change (GAC). A chief criterion measure was accordance, the degree to which students held the ideal postinstructional understanding set forth in a teacher-expert concept map. After GAC instruction that included concept-mapping activities, 34 eighth-grade science students were assigned randomly to groups and completed either POSTICM or POSTI. These students and their teacher also completed relatedness ratings of central concepts from the teacher-expert map. The Knowledge Network Organizing Tool™ was used to transform relatedness ratings to Pathfinder networks and compare nets to yield a student to teacher similarity index (Pathfinder index). Regression analysis revealed that type of interview did not predict accordance. However, most POSTICM students perceived the concept-mapping interview component to be helpful and affect positively their answers to the interview questions. The Pathfinder index did predict (p ϭ .003) accordance-the Pathfinder index was a reliable confirmatory measure of the degree to which students held the ideal postinstructional understanding. J Res Sci Teach 35: 521-546, 1998.