User characteristics in intelligent tutoring systems

The development of individualized educational environments, to facilitate learning for the diverse population of students in today\u27s secondary school system, has become more prevalent with the increased ease of access to computers that many schools are now enjoying. The use of Computer Aided Instruction is becoming more common as a means for individual tutoring. This thesis explores the problem of individualizing this instruction by analyzing the relationship between preferred teaching methods and computer users personality types, as defined by the Myers-Briggs type indicator and two other unscientific user characteristics. The preferred teaching method was analyzed using various criteria, including user choices, both sequence and quantity, opinion survey, comments, and observation. The results support many of the conclusions formulated in earlier studies, especially those concerning the independence of performance and the quantity of instruction, as well as the need for multiple instructional methodologies due to type differences. These two conclusions, alone, encourage the idea of more individualized instruction and foster the development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems to provide the student with an environment that is most conducive to his/her learning preference