Understanding How Students Control Their Learning in Adaptive Learning Environments

• In Event: Advanced Technologies for Learning Roundtable Session

Abstract

Adaptive learning (AL) includes learning support that allows learning at the learner’s own pace with real-time guidance and feedback such as, ways of navigating course content, immediate recommendations, and detailed feedback tailored to their needs. As most AL environments provide indicators to determine the learner’s starting point, we aim to understand learner’s use of the test whose initial intention is to identify learner’s different starting points. Traces of 81 students in a finance course along with two-time-point interviews were analyzed. Our findings showed that the group with the lowest usage of the Warm-up tests had the most distinct differences in their performances. Our interviewees showed the various learning experiences and strategies, which implies the needs of different learning support.

Authors

• Eunsung Park, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park

• Dirk Ifenthaler, University of Mannheim