A Framework to Personalise Open Learning Environments by Adapting to Learning Styles

Abstract

This paper presents an adaptive framework to personalise open learning environments. The design of the framework has been grounded in cognitive science and learning principles. The theory of learning styles, and more specifically the model of Felder and Silverman, has been considered and applied. The developed framework has two main functions. First, it automatically identifies the learners’ learning styles by tracking their behaviours and interactions with the provided learning objects. Secondly, it provides adaptive navigational support based on the identified learning styles. Sorting learning materials based on learners’ preferences and hiding the least preferred materials are the two techniques of navigational support that have been applied in the proposed framework. Detailed descriptions of the framework functionalities and different components are presented in this paper. Future piloting and evaluation will test and verify this proposed framework.