The Relationship of Learning, Behavior, and Cognitive Style in Hypermedia-Based Instruction: Implications for Design of HBI

Abstract

In the past two decades, developments in electronic technology have facilitated the production of several types of interactive teaching tools: computer-assisted instruction, interactive videotape/disc, simulations and microworlds, intelligent tutoring systems, multimedia, and hypermedia. However, in many instances, electronic technology has outdistanced instructional design processes to the extent that instructional designs and techniques have been mere reactions to the developing technology. The authors’ research on learning in an hypermedia-based instruction (HBI) environment indicates that students with different cognitive styles, specifically field dependence/field independence, are served differently by hypermedia-based instruction. This chapter shows that the relation between the students’ information-accessing behavior with HBI and their measured cognitive style tends to be the opposite for field independent students and field dependent students. It discusses the development of HBI software that allows the student to study computer ethics in an interactive fashion, and research on learning as a function of the student’s cognitive style, with different versions of the software incorporating various instructional components.