Design of Cognitive Driven Adaptive e-Learning Environment using Individual Differences

Abstract

The educational system of Pakistan surrounds with several problems. Among them, the most alarming issue is the poor learning outcomes of students. The predominant cause of such worst condition is weak traditional learning environment. To cater chronic educational issues the world around us strongly rely on technology because E-learning is being considered as widely recognized alternative to handle the shortcomings of traditional learning environment. Adaptive Educational Systems (AESs) are specialized class of e-learning which aimed to deliver individualized learning experience. The AESs integrate learner‟s individual characteristics with the help of user modeling techniques to impart instruction to each individual in accordance to his/her learning needs. Numerous AESs have already been developed in the pursuit of quality learning experience. These systems consider single aspect of learner such as learning styles. The success rate of such systems is reasonably low as their impact in terms of improving learning outcomes is still unclear. The researchers affirmed that considering a single aspect of learner is not enough to positively impact the learning process. It is therefore suggested to conduct further research considering other effective parameters along with learning styles. In this thesis, an adaptive learning system is being proposed considering combination of multiple sources of personalization including prior knowledge, Working Memory Capacity (WMC) and learning styles. An experiment has been conducted using sample size of (184) students to evaluate the impact of proposed approach in comparison to traditional learning environment. The student sample was equally divided into control and experimental groups. The control and experimental groups further consisted of subgroups formed on the basis of learners cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics identified using standard instruments. The experimental subgroups learned the subject contents with proposed adaptive learning system whereas control subgroups learned in traditional classroom environment. The results revealed that participants of experimental subgroups outperformed in terms of learning outcomes and learning efficiency than their counterparts of control subgroups.