Learners’ Satisfaction with Adaptive Learning Systems

Abstract

To enhance diverse students’ learning experiences, tertiary educational institutions are increasingly adopting adaptive technologies. Although there are views that adaptive learning platforms contribute to learning within higher education, efficacy research of such systems yields mixed results. This is an indication that more could be studied concerning how adaptive learning can be efficacious within higher education contexts particularly when cognate studies have mostly discussed how cognitive measures differ between learners who engaged and those who did not engage with an adaptive learning system. Beyond cognitive measures such as achievement scores provided by adaptive learning systems, this brief paper proposes that learner satisfaction towards such systems - as an imperative factor due to its direct and significant relationship between users and the system - needs to be examined, in part to evaluate the efficacy of adaptive learning systems. Given the complexity of learner satisfaction as a construct, such investigations have the potential to illuminate important factors of system optimizations, developments, and interventions that provide crucial guidelines for higher education institutions to implement successful adaptive learning courses that meet students’ satisfaction.