DESIGN OF A FLEXIBLE E-ASSESSMENT SYSTEM
TO ACCOMMODATE DIVERSE LEARNING STYLES: A
MATHEMATICS CASE STUDY
Tendai Dube
University of Derby
and
Minhua Ma
Glasgow School of Art
Objective
To accommodate diverse learning
styles in a Mathematics e-assessment
What are learning styles?
 The different ways individuals prefer to acquire
information
 The complex manners in which, and conditions
under which, learners most efficiently and most
effectively perceive, process, store and recall
what they are attempting to learn. (James and
Gardner 1995)
Categories of learning styles?
 Field dependence – total field seen as a compact whole
 Field independence – objects perceived as separate from
the field
 Left brain – associated with logical processing and
sequential ordering
 Right brain – process intuitively, holistically and randomly
 Visual – prefers pictures, diagrams, charts, videos, etc.
 Auditory – associated with spoken words and other
sounds
 Kinesthetic – involves movement and hands on
experience
Why bother about learning styles
in e-assessment?
 If a student prefers to learn in a particular way,
the learning process becomes easier
 The student will be motivated to learn and that
can lead to them getting high grades
 It can be argued that if learning can be influenced
by correctly matching student learning style and
resources, success in assessment can also be
influenced by correctly matching student learning
style and the types of questions they answer
 E-assessment enables that flexibility
Design of the Mathematics e-assessment
A. Design 10 Mathematics questions (set by lecturers) to suit for
4 different learning styles – Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic and
Read/Write
B. Store the questions in a database per learning style (including
a random mixed set from the 4 styles to cater for multimodal
learning style)
C. Present each of the 10 questions set in different ways to the
students and instruct them to select their preferences giving
reasons for their choice.
D. Redirect students to the VARK learning style assessment
questionnaire to determine their learning style
E. Store the learning styles assessments results in the Maths
assessment database per student using their ID numbers
F. Present the Maths assessment matching the student’s
recorded learning style.
Question Design
 Questions were set to suit the four perceptual
learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic,
Read/Write
 Consider this example:
Original Question:
The mean weight of 5 chocolate bars is 50g. Sam ate one of the bars.
The remaining 4 chocolate bars have a mean weight of 40g. How heavy
was the bar that Sam ate?
Answer: 5 x 50 = 250g
4 x 40 = 160g
250 – 160 = 90g
Styled Question
1a. The mean weight of 5 chocolate bars is 50g. Sam ate one of the bars.
The remaining 4 chocolate bars have a mean weight of 40g. How heavy was
the bar that Sam ate? [for Read/Write learning style → text entry question
type]
1b. You need headphones for this question. Listen to the question and write
your answer in the box provided. (Choose the appropriate symbol for your
answer from the drop down list.) [for Auditory learning style →text entry
question type]
1c. The mean weight of 5 chocolate bars is 50g. Sam ate one of the bars. The
remaining 4 chocolate bars have a mean weight of 40g. How heavy was the
bar that Sam ate? [for Kinesthetic learning style →multiple choice question
type]
a) 250g, b) 10g, c) 90g, d) 160g
1d. The mean weight of 5 chocolate bars is 50g. Sam ate one of the bars.
The remaining 4 chocolate bars have a mean weight of 40g. How heavy was
the bar that Sam ate? [for Visual learning style →multiple choice question
type (as in 1c) with picture]
Question Designed for Visual learning style
Database Design
 MySQL relational database was used
 Storage for:
- students’ details, preferred question choices,
marks given per question and results
- assessment questions and answer
- question types, learning styles referenced by id
numbers
- logs of interactions with the system
- reference numbers for images and audio files
 Student’s number is used in the VARK learning style
assessment for consistent identification between systems
 Learning style id is used to relate the different learning styles
to the questions and to students so that the system presents
the relevant questions according to the students’ learning
styles.
Questions stored in a database
Determining Student’s Style
Learning styles recorded in database
 NB: Learning style ids for students with student numbers 6
and 9 are set to 0 (default value) as their styles have not
been updated in the database.
System Design
 Follows a two-staged workflow from a student’s view:
 Stage 1: Register > Choose preferred questions and justify
your choices > Complete VARK questionnaire
 Stage 2: Log into system > Answer Maths questions >
Get feedback (expected answers, given answers and scores
per question)
 Students interact with the system via a web interface
 The system was developed using PHP scripting language
 System main workflow is summarised here:
From
database
Display
question
Mark
Answer
Record:
Answer,
Mark
Display
feedback
Initial Results
 Results of the preferred question choice show that most
students prefer multiple choice questions because they
easily just pick an answer from those provided
 Some indicated preference of reading the question
themselves rather than listening to it – an indication of
read/write learning style
 Results from a survey indicate that generally students think
it’s a good idea to take assessments which suit their learning
style with some agreeing it can possibly lead to attainment
of good grades in summative assessments
 Others think assessments should include a variety of
learning styles since in real life they will not require just their
style
 The exercise both revealed and confirmed the students
learning styles
Conclusions and Future Work
 Based on the results so far, it can be confirmed that people
have different preferences for the way they learn
 Considering learning styles in learning, teaching and
assessment can help students achieve high grades
 Students should also familiarise themselves with other styles
in order to prepare for real life situations
 For future work, we consider using simple gif animations for
better presentation for the visual learning style
 Results will continue to be gathered on this study and will be
shared on other platforms
References
James, W. B., and Gardner, D. L. (1995) 'Learning Styles:
Implications for Distance Learning', New Directions for Adult
and Continuing Education, vol. 67, Fall 1995, pp. 19-32.
Link to the system -http://ciadweb.derby.ac.uk/maths/