DESIGN OF A FLEXIBLE E-ASSESSMENT SYSTEM TO ACCOMMODATE DIVERSE LEARNING STYLES:

A MATHEMATICS CASE STUDY

Tendai DubeUniversity of Derby

and Minhua Ma

Glasgow School of Art

Objective

To accommodate diverse learning styles in a Mathematics e-assessment

What are learning styles?

The different ways individuals prefer to acquire information

The complex manners in which, and conditions under which, learners most efficiently and most effectively perceive, process, store and recall what they are attempting to learn. (James and Gardner 1995)

Categories of learning styles?

Field dependence – total field seen as a compact whole

Field independence – objects perceived as separate from the field

Left brain – associated with logical processing and sequential ordering

Right brain – process intuitively, holistically and randomly

Visual – prefers pictures, diagrams, charts, videos, etc.

Auditory – associated with spoken words and other sounds

Kinesthetic – involves movement and hands on experience

Why bother about learning stylesin e-assessment?

If a student prefers to learn in a particular way, the learning process becomes easier

The student will be motivated to learn and that can lead to them getting high grades

It can be argued that if learning can be influenced by correctly matching student learning style and resources, success in assessment can also be influenced by correctly matching student learning style and the types of questions they answer

E-assessment enables that flexibility

Design of the Mathematics e-assessment

A. Design 10 Mathematics questions (set by lecturers) to suit for 4 different learning styles – Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic and Read/WriteB. Store the questions in a database per learning style (including a random mixed set from the 4 styles to cater for multimodal learning style)C.Present each of the 10 questions set in different ways to the students and instruct them to select their preferences giving reasons for their choice.D.Redirect students to the VARK learning style assessment questionnaire to determine their learning styleE. Store the learning styles assessments results in the Maths assessment database per student using their ID numbersF. Present the Maths assessment matching the student’s recorded learning style.

Question Design

Questions were set to suit the four perceptual learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic, Read/Write

Consider this example: Original Question: The mean weight of 5 chocolate bars is 50g. Sam ate one of the bars. The remaining 4 chocolate bars have a mean weight of 40g. How heavy was the bar that Sam ate? Answer: 5 x 50 = 250g 4 x 40 = 160g 250 – 160 = 90g

1a. The mean weight of 5 chocolate bars is 50g. Sam ate one of the bars. The remaining 4 chocolate bars have a mean weight of 40g. How heavy was the bar that Sam ate? [for Read/Write learning style → text entry question type]1b. You need headphones for this question. Listen to the question and write your answer in the box provided. (Choose the appropriate symbol for your answer from the drop down list.) [for Auditory learning style →text entry question type]1c. The mean weight of 5 chocolate bars is 50g. Sam ate one of the bars. The remaining 4 chocolate bars have a mean weight of 40g. How heavy was the bar that Sam ate? [for Kinesthetic learning style →multiple choice question type]a) 250g, b) 10g, c) 90g, d) 160g1d. The mean weight of 5 chocolate bars is 50g. Sam ate one of the bars. The remaining 4 chocolate bars have a mean weight of 40g. How heavy was the bar that Sam ate? [for Visual learning style →multiple choice question type (as in 1c) with picture]

Styled Question

Question Designed for Visual learning style

Database Design MySQL relational database was used

Storage for: - students’ details, preferred question choices,

marks given per question and results - assessment questions and answer - question types, learning styles referenced by id numbers - logs of interactions with the system - reference numbers for images and audio files

Student’s number is used in the VARK learning style assessment for consistent identification between systems

Learning style id is used to relate the different learning styles to the questions and to students so that the system presents the relevant questions according to the students’ learning styles.

Questions stored in a database

Determining Student’s Style

Learning styles recorded in database

NB: Learning style ids for students with student numbers 6 and 9 are set to 0 (default value) as their styles have not been updated in the database.

System Design Follows a two-staged workflow from a student’s view:

Stage 1: Register > Choose preferred questions and justify your choices > Complete VARK questionnaire

Stage 2: Log into system > Answer Maths questions > Get feedback (expected answers, given answers and scores per question)

Students interact with the system via a web interface

The system was developed using PHP scripting language

System main workflow is summarised here:

Display question

Mark Answer

Record: Answer,

Mark

Display feedback

From database

Initial Results Results of the preferred question choice show that most students prefer multiple choice questions because they easily just pick an answer from those provided

Some indicated preference of reading the question themselves rather than listening to it – an indication of read/write learning style

Results from a survey indicate that generally students think it’s a good idea to take assessments which suit their learning style with some agreeing it can possibly lead to attainment of good grades in summative assessments

Others think assessments should include a variety of learning styles since in real life they will not require just their style

The exercise both revealed and confirmed the students learning styles

Conclusions and Future Work

Based on the results so far, it can be confirmed that people have different preferences for the way they learn

Considering learning styles in learning, teaching and assessment can help students achieve high grades

Students should also familiarise themselves with other styles in order to prepare for real life situations

For future work, we consider using simple gif animations for better presentation for the visual learning style

Results will continue to be gathered on this study and will be shared on other platforms

James, W. B., and Gardner, D. L. (1995) 'Learning Styles: Implications for Distance Learning', New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, vol. 67, Fall 1995, pp. 19-32.

Link to the system -http://ciadweb.derby.ac.uk/maths/

References