Where innovation starts 1212 Technische Universiteit Eindhoven University of Technology 1 Incorporating Cognitive/Learning Styles in a General-Purpose.

1/ Where innovation starts

Technische UniversiteitEindhovenUniversity of Technology

Incorporating Cognitive/Learning Stylesin a General-Purpose

Adaptive Hypermedia System

Natalia StashJune 25, 2008



Contents• Introduction• Goals of the Dissertation• Implementation of a

General-Purpose Adaptive Hypermedia System AHA! (Adaptive Hypermedia Architecture)

• Identification of Strategies Corresponding to Cognitive/Learning Styles (CS/LS)

• Application and Visualization of CS/LS Strategies in AHA!• Approach Validation and Evaluation• Conclusions and Future Work



Subject of the Dissertation

Adaptive Hypermedia

Computer Science topic

Cognitive/Learning Styles

Cognitive Psychology topic



What is Adaptive Hypermedia (AH)?

Adaptive Hypermedia & Adaptive Hypermedia Systems (AHS) allow to solve traditional hypermedia problems. They store user information in the user model and apply it for:

• adapting link structure and • adapting content presentation

Problems with traditional hypermedia:• navigation through a rich link structure• the same information for everyone

Hypermedia – non-sequential information, which is a combination of different media (such as text, images, audio)

Classic example of hypermedia: World Wide Web (WWW)



Application Areas of AHS

• Before AHA! (Adaptive Hypermedia Architecture) there were only special-purpose AHS used for creating e.g.:

- online educational courses

- virtual museums

- online information kiosks

- etc.

• However there were no general-purpose tools



What are Cognitive/Learning Styles (CS/LS)?

imager vs. verbalizer global vs. sequential

active vs. reflective

Individual differences in perceiving and processing information, preferred ways of learning. Examples of CS/LS:



Why Applying Cognitive/Learning Styles?

• Learner’s awareness of his/her style• Matching teaching method (or instructional strategy)

with CS/LS may increase learner’s performance• Deliberate mismatching can help develop new skills• Letting learners try different instruction strategies



Goals of the Dissertation1. Creating a General-Purpose AH Tool

novelty: – before AHA! there were only special-purpose tools

2. Providing Adaptation to Cognitive/Learning Styles– bridge the gap between AH and CS/LS– as a proof that a general-purpose tool has been creatednovelty: – most AHS with support for CS/LS are bound to certain

models– CS/LS representation is predefined by the developers of

the AHS rather than the developers of adaptive applications, pedagogues or psychologists



Design Requirements for a General-Purpose Tool

(based on overview of AHS and AHAM)• adaptation types and techniques (overview of AHS)

• aspects used for adaptation (overview of AHS & AHAM)

• arbitrary concept relationships (overview of AHS & AHAM)

• generic adaptation rules (AHAM)

• handling non-monotonic user model updates and cycles in adaptation rules (AHAM)

Design wishes • Authoring tools (overview of AHS)• Performance (overview of AHS)



AHA! : from version1.0 to version 3.0

WWW server

DM/AMlocal

pages UM

End-user

DM - Domain ModelAM - Adaptation ModelUM - User Model

AHA! engine

Java servlets

Pages from external WWW servers

Manager

Authoring tools

Concept EditorGraph AuthorForm Editor

Java Applets

“aspects used for adaptation” & “arbitrary concept relationships”“generic adaptation rules”

“non-monotonic UM updates”

“handlingcycles”

Design requirement“adaptation types and techniques”



Design Wish: Authoring Tools(Graph Author)



Design Wishes

• Authoring Tools (overview of AHS)

– high-level Graph Author

• Performance (overview of AHS)

– AHA! achieves sub-second response time



Correlations Between CS/LSVisualGlobal

Analytic

Field-dependentField-independent

WholistAnalytic

VerbalizerImager

SensorIntuitive

AssimilatingAccommodating

ActivistReflectorActive

ReflectiveSensingIntuitiveVisualVerbalGlobal

SequentialSerialist(W)holist

Meaning-orientedApplication-oriented

Reproduction-orientedUndirected

Riding’smodel

Dunn & Dunnmodel

Pask’smodel

Felder-Silverman

model

Honey & Mumford

model

MBTI

Vermunt’s model

Witkin’s modelKolb’s model

...

...

......

IntrovertExtravert



Types of Adaptation Strategies • Instructional strategies

- selection of items- ordering information or providing different navigation paths

• Instructional meta-strategies – inference or monitoring strategies, to detect user’s learning style,e.g. preferences for:- certain types of information (e.g., text vs. image)- reading order (e.g., breadth-first vs. depth-first)



Learning Styles Strategies Structure in LAG-XLSstrategynamedescriptionif+

if

thencondition

else

then

sort?select?

setDefault*action*

else

sort?select?

setDefault*action*

showContent*

select

showContentDefault*showLink*

linkTo*

sort

setDefault

expressionattributeName

attributeName

attributeName

linkToshowLink

comment

UMvariable

action

expression

attributeName





Presentation for Imager+Global Learner



Presentation for Verbal+Sequential Learner



Inferring Preferences for Image or Text



Presentation for Active Learner



Presentation for Reflective Learner



Approach Validation and Evaluation• Representing features of AHS providing adaptation to

CS/LS in AHA!• Evaluation with students from TU/e

- understanding of how the system works- authoring ease- satisfaction with the resulting presentation

• Validation with learning styles experts- satisfaction with the effect of the predefined strategies- expressivity of LAG-XLS language for defining strategies



Conclusion• We showed that it is possible to create a

general-purpose AH tool

• We demonstrated the general-purpose nature of AHA! by showing adaptation to CS/LS:

- support for CS/LS implemented as an extension to the created tool

- no changes to the core engine were required



Future Work

• Address the option for searching information in adaptive applications

• Creating various types of strategies not only limited to cognitive/learning styles

• Group user models and adaptation: use information about some users to help others

Where innovation starts 1212 Technische Universiteit Eindhoven University of Technology 1 Incorporating Cognitive/Learning Styles in a General-Purpose.

Documents

adaptive hypermedia

generalpurpose tools

examples of csls

future work slide

user information

processing information

specialpurpose ahs

application areas of