ArticlePloS one2019
Forma mentis networks quantify crucial differences in STEM perception between students and experts.
Article in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Domain-adaptive Bengali text summarization: Harnessing transformer-based large language models in closed-set contexts.PloS one · 2026Article
- The "LLM World of Words" English free association norms generated by large language models.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Mapping Mental Representations With Free Associations: A Tutorial Using the R Package associatoR.Journal of cognition · 2025Article
- Network analysis investigating the differentiation of achievement goal orientations in junior high school.F1000Research · 2025Article
- The "Small World of Words" free association norms for Rioplatense Spanish.Behavior research methods · 2024Article
- Cognitive networks detect structural patterns and emotional complexity in suicide notes.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Article
- Forma mentis networks map how nursing and engineering students enhance their mindsets about innovation and health during professional growth.PeerJ. Computer science · 2020Article
- Text-mining forma mentis networks reconstruct public perception of the STEM gender gap in social media.PeerJ. Computer science · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In order to investigate how high school students and researchers perceive science-related (STEM) subjects, we introduce forma mentis networks. This framework models how people conceptually structure their stance, mindset or forma mentis toward a given topic. In this study, we build forma mentis networks revolving around STEM and based on psycholinguistic data, namely free associations of STEM concepts (i.e., which words are elicited first and associated by students/researchers reading "science"?) and their valence ratings concepts (i.e., is "science" perceived as positive, negative or neutral by students/researchers?). We construct separate networks for (Ns = 159) Italian high school students and (Nr = 59) interdisciplinary professionals and researchers in order to investigate how these groups differ in their conceptual knowledge and emotional perception of STEM. Our analysis of forma mentis networks at various scales indicate that, like researchers, students perceived "science" as a strongly positive entity. However, differently from researchers, students identified STEM subjects like "physics" and "mathematics" as negative and associated them with other negative STEM-related concepts. We call this surrounding of negative associations a negative emotional aura. Cross-validation with external datasets indicated that the negative emotional auras of physics, maths and statistics in the students' forma mentis network related to science anxiety. Furthermore, considering the semantic associates of "mathematics" and "physics" revealed that negative auras may originate from a bleak, dry perception of the technical methodology and mnemonic tools taught in these subjects (e.g., calculus rules). Overall, our results underline the crucial importance of emphasizing nontechnical and applied aspects of STEM disciplines, beyond purely methodological teaching. The quantitative insights achieved through forma mentis networks highlight the necessity of establishing novel pedagogic and interdisciplinary links between science, its real-world complexity, and creativity in science learning in order to enhance the impact of STEM education, learning and outreach activities.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.