The divide-and-conquer paradigm as a basis of a new approach to overcome the time consuming issue of the assessment process in adaptive E-learning systems

Abstract

The Model of Felder-Silverman Learning Style has received a noticeable attention in the adaptive e-learning systems, compared to other learning styles theories. This work deals with the Felder-Silverman Index of Learning Styles (ILS) questionnaire which considered as a common tool for learners' learning styles assessment in adaptive e-learning systems. This questionnaire contains 44 questions, available free on the internet and its validity and reliability have been tested. One of the main concerns related to this questionnaire is the number of questions the learners has to answer. The completion of this questionnaire is a time consuming and very boring task for the learners. For overcoming this issue, some works proposed to reduce the number of the ILS questions needed to determine the learning style of the learner. Others works investigated the implicit detection of the learner's learning style from his/her behaviour while using the e-learning system or computer educational games. This paper lists these approaches, highlights the limits of each one of them and proposes an alternative one. The proposed approach is based on the division of the ILS questionnaire on four sub-questionnaires; re-implementation of the algorithm used to assess the learner's preferences on the four dimensions of the Felder-Silverman learning style model; and the creation of four web services to replace the existing web-based version of the ILS.