The Effect of Learning Styles on Academic Performance in Technology Mediated Learning

In this document we describe the formatting requirements for the Proceedings of the AMCIS Conference. Please review this document carefully. You can use this document as a template and copy/paste your paper content here (this might be the best or easiest way). Please be sure to adhere to the formatting requirements as this will be your camera-ready version, and a PDF format will be generated directly from your submitted final Word version. Please note several limitations on length: (1) your abstract should be no more than 150 words, as the abstract will also be used for the conference program, (2) your entire paper should be no more than 5,000 words, including all materials and sections such as figures, tables, and references. This paper length is intended to encourage authors to publish full-length papers in journals or other outlets at a later date

Gender issues in computer‐supported learning

Contemporary research identifies significant gender‐related differences in performance and interaction style in computer‐supported learning (CSL) environments. Evidence suggests that initial perceptions of these environments as democratic and offering equal opportunities to all students were flawed because interactions that take place through electronic channels lose none of the sociocultural complexity or gender imbalance that already exists within society. This paper presents a summary of gender‐related issues identified by international research and academic practice together with the opinions expressed by participants in a discussion forum staged at Alt‐C in 2001. Two main questions were addressed during the conference forum. Firstly, if computer access and literacy levels are assumed to be equalizing as the literature suggests, how can educational designers using CSL technologies best serve all student groups? Secondly, does the existence of gender‐based differences in behaviour and interaction style in CSL environments mean that any student group is disadvantaged? The paper concludes with suggestions about how educational designers might increase the flexibility of CSL courses to offer equal opportunities to all students. A number of issues for further research are also identified

A Longitudinal Study on the Effect of Hypermedia on Learning Dimensions, Culture and Teaching Evaluation

Earlier studies have found the effectiveness of hypermedia systems as learning tools heavily depend on their compatibility with the cognitive processes by which students perceive, understand and learn from complex information\ud sources. Hence, a learner’s cognitive style plays a significant role in determining how much is learned from a hypermedia learning system. A longitudinal study of Australian and Malaysian students was conducted over two semesters in 2008. Five types of predictor variables were investigated with cognitive style: (i) learning dimensions (nonlinear learning, learner control, multiple tools); (ii)\ud culture dimensions (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, long/short term orientation); (iii) evaluation of units; (iv) student demographics; and (v) country in which students studied. This study uses both multiple linear regression and linear mixed effects to model the relationships among the variables. The results from this study support the findings of a cross-sectional study conducted by Lee et al. (2010); in particular, the predictor variables are significant to determine students’ cognitive style

Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies

A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes—measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation—was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se. An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K–12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K–12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education)

Perceived quality of multimedia educational content: A cognitive style approach

This is the post-print version of the Article. The oficial published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright, 2006 SpringerCognitive styles influence the way how humans process information, with previous research demonstrating that they have significant effects on student learning in multimedia environments. On the other hand, the perceptual quality of the human multimedia experience is notoriously difficult to measure. In this paper, we report the results of an empirical study, which investigated the relationship between user cognitive styles and perceptual multimedia quality, in which users had the possibility to specify their desired Quality of Service settings — in terms of frame rates and color depth. Results show that whilst color choice is impacted by a participant's cognitive style, such Quality of Service parameters do not significantly affect perceived multimedia quality, and that users do not necessarily choose optimum presentation settings to enhance their perceived enjoyment and assimilation of multimedia informational content

Strategies to address gender inequalities in Scottish schools: a review of the literature

This literature review forms the first part of a study of the strategies employed in Scottish schools to address gender inequalities in relation primarily to attainment. In undertaking this task, the intention is to build upon a number of previous investigations into the nature and causes of gender inequalities in schools. Some of these (Riddell, 1996; Osler et al, 2002; Lloyd, 2005) have considered gender and special educational needs; others have discussed gender at particular stages of schooling (Wilkinson et al, 1999; Croxford, 1999; Biggart, 2000); whilst a number of recent projects in the UK and in Scotland (Powney, 1996; Sukhnandan, 1999; Tinklin et al, 2001) have considered gender, attainment and/or achievement across the population and span of compulsory schooling. A recent nationally commissioned report (Younger, Warrington et al, 2005) has specifically investigated the issue of raising the attainment of boys. Together, these studies and others have established that there are gender inequalities both in the forms of participation in schooling and in its outcomes (albeit there is agreement that gender is not the only, nor even the main, source of inequality). Also available from this body of literature are analyses of causes of gender inequalities and debate about the strategies schools might adopt to address these inequalities. These strategies arise, in general, from understandings of the nature and causes of gender difference. There is, therefore, some contention here. A number of commentators argue that some of the strategies adopted by schools pathologise gender differences and hence reinforce particular forms of masculinity at the risk of suppressing, or marginalising, other forms, and at the expense of femininities. Evidence that there are gender inequalities in attainment in Scottish schools has been discussed in detail elsewhere. It will be reviewed briefly here and will be related to broader patterns of inequality, and in particular to social class. For this study, though, with its focus on school strategies, the debate about the causes of gendered outcomes is especially important and it will be treated in some depth and related to social class before the discussion moves on to consider the range of strategies employed in schools, as far as they are represented in the literature. The strategies to be considered encompass approaches to learning, teaching and assessment; aspects of classroom organisation; and school-wide issues such as staff development. All of these will be considered critically in the light of previous discussion of the causes of gender differences and their intersection by other, and arguably more influential, forms of identity

Does increasing communication through visual learning environments enhance student perceptions of lecturers?

The current study was conducted in an effort to examine whether increased levels of communication using visual learning environments (VLEs) alters student perceptions of lecturers. Eighty-six MSc students in Computing Science participated by using She and Fisher’s (2002) Teacher Communication Behavior Questionnaire (TCBQ). In addition to using the questionnaire, data from the electronic class site were used to make assessments about the quality and quantity of communication. Two types of classrooms were evaluated: a) a control condition in which the lecturer did not alter any communication aspect of the module, and b) the experimental condition in which the lecturer posted weekly discussion topics. Significant differences were found by cultural background and gender of the students. The bulletin board postings in the experimental condition were more heavily content-based than the control condition ones. The consistency in discussion topic of the experimental condition postings, both bulletin board and email, were more fluid than in the control condition

The impact of cognitive styles on perceptual distributed multimedia quality

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Multimedia technology has been widely used in web-based instruction, but previous studies have indicated that individual differences, especially cognitive styles, have significant effects on users’ preferences with respect to presentation of multimedia content. However, such research has thus far neglected to examine the effect of cognitive styles on users’ subjective perceptions of multimedia quality. This study aims to examine the relationships among users’ cognitive styles, the multimedia Quality of Service (QoS) delivered by the underlying network, and Quality of Perception (QoP), which encompasses user levels of enjoyment and understanding of the informational content provided by multimedia material. Accordingly, 132 users took part in an experiment in which they were shown multimedia video clips presented with different values of two QoS parameters (frame rate and colour depth). Results show that, whilst the two QoS parameters do not impact user QoP, multimedia content and dynamism levels significantly influence the user understanding and enjoyment component of QoP

The role of cultural diversity in e-based language learning.\ud A comparative study of Bulgarian and Lithuanian learners of German as a foreign language using an online learning platform

The study reported on in this paper focusses on the impact of cultural\ud factors in media-based language acquisition. The study sets out to investigate the\ud role of learners‟ cultural dispositions during the use of media-based programs in\ud language learning. More specifically, the study aimed at finding out to what extent\ud the cultural disposition of learners outweighs the learners‟ individual preferences\ud in a media-based (online) language course. The analysis of input data produced\ud strong differences between the two learning cultures at the outset of the study.\ud Lithuanian learners were found to be more passive, more rule oriented, more\ud reliant on their mother tongue as a means of instruction and less tolerant vis-à-vis\ud ambiguity when they entered the experiment. They also turned out to reject open\ud (less teacher-guided) forms of communicative learning requiring active\ud participation and, instead, preferred language teaching to be (passively)\ud entertaining. Bulgarian learners by contrast were more tolerant vis-à-vis ambiguity\ud and more goal-oriented with respect to learning the foreign language for academic\ud success abroad. They also turned out to be more focussed on and appreciative of\ud the technical aspects of the program and thus were eager to explore new\ud approaches to media-based learning. However, over the course of the study both\ud groups of participants developed an unexpected ability to adapt to the electronic\ud media even though the program seemed to counteract their cultural-specific\ud preferences. The study shows that both groups of learners improved significantly\ud over the course of the experiment with respect to language skills and that\ud acceptance of the program was high in both groups despite the initial resistance\ud and despite the fact that the program requires a well developed level of\ud independence. Despite the fact that a tendency to act according to cultural\ud dispositions can be shown those influences were not found to be statistically\ud significant