Accommodating Individual Differences in Web Based Instruction

(WBI) and Implementation

Rana A. Alhajri, Steve Counsell and XiaoHui Liu

Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, Middlesex, U.K.

Keywords: Web-Based Instruction, Individual Differences, System Features.

Abstract: Hypermedia systems have gained attraction for the purposes of teaching and learning. These systems

provide users with freedom of navigation that allows them to develop learning pathways. Empirical

evidence indicates that not all learners can benefit from hypermedia learning systems. In order to develop a

learning environment, individual differences need to be taken into account to ensure they impact on

students’ achievements. In this paper, we describe and propose a web based instruction (WBI) program

which accommodates preferences of individual differences; learner’s prior knowledge and cognitive styles

using the three key design elements of navigation tools, display options and content scope are explored. We

also add learner’s gender behaviour as a third dimension of individual differences.

1 INTRODUCTION

There have been numerous research studies on the

effect of hypermedia on learners using Web Based

Instruction (WBI), (Chen and Liu, 2008);

(Torkzadeh and Lee, 2003); (Chen et al., 2006). A

learner’s performance is determined by their varying

skills and abilities and various personal features such

as age, gender, interests, preferences and

background knowledge of course content. Such

differences, known as “individual differences” of

learners, have been found to be important human

factors in the development of non-linear learning

systems (Calcaterra et al., 2005); (Mitchell et al.,

2005). WBI design can provide flexible navigational

tools for teaching and learning in a non-linear

learning approach (Pituch and Lee, 2006); (Minetou,

et al., 2008); examples include a main menu, a

hierarchical map or an alphabetical index and search

option.

In order to develop a learning environment,

individual differences need to be taken into account

to ensure they impact on students’ achievements.

This environment must be suitable for their

differences, including their learning styles,

preferences and needs (Samah et al., 2011). Thus,

many research studies have attempted to find ways

of building systems to be robust and accommodate

preferences of individual differences.

In this paper, we propose a WBI program which

accommodates preferences of some individual

differences using mechanism provided in Chen and

Liu (2008) and a framework of Chen et al., (2006).

Our WBI program and its implementation consider

individual differences such as learner’s prior

knowledge, gender, and cognitive styles (field

dependent and field independent). These

considerations are reflected in the three key design

elements, navigation tools, display options, and

content scope in the structure of our proposed WBI.

2 BACKGROUND

The web-learning environment includes various

multimedia lessons such as text, animation, graphics,

video and sound. It is important that trainers are

easily able to recognize information resources that

match user’s needs. Users should have a flexible

interface to accommodate their needs and should be

able to identify relevant content and navigation

support, freely move around and scan results. Many

research studies have been engaged in finding ways

to build such systems to be a robust hypermedia-

learning environment that can accommodate the

individual differences. Existing studies suggest that

a non-linear learning approach in hypermedia

learning systems may not be suitable to all learners

(Chen and Macredie, 2002). Learners may have

different backgrounds, especially in terms of their

281

A. Alhajri R., Counsell S. and Lui X..

Accommodating Individual Differences in Web Based Instruction (WBI) and Implementation.

DOI: 10.5220/0004424702810289

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Data Communication Networking, 10th International Conference on e-Business and 4th

International Conference on Optical Communication Systems (ICE-B-2013), pages 281-289

ISBN: 978-989-8565-72-3

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

knowledge, skills and needs, so they may show

various levels of engagement in course content

(Wang, 2007). Therefore, many studies argue that no

one style results in better performance. However,

learners whose browsing behavior was consistent

with their own favoured styles obtained the best

performance results (Calcaterra et al., 2005);

(Khalsa, 2013).

2.1 Individual Differences

Previous studies demonstrated the importance of

individual differences as a factor in the design of

web-based instruction. Such individual differences

have significant effects on user learning in web-

based instruction, which may affect the way in

which they learn from, and interact with,

hypermedia systems. These range from cognitive

styles (Kim, 2001); (Chen and Macredie, 2004);

(Workman, 2004), to prior knowledge (Hölscher and

Strube, 2000); (Calisir and Gurel, 2003); (Mitchell,

et al., 2005) to gender differences (Schumacher and

Morahan-Martin, 2001); (Roy et al., 2003);

(Beckwith et al., 2005).

The individual difference factors identified in our

research to influence the learner’s performance are

Cognitive Styles such as Field Dependent vs. Field

Independent, Prior Knowledge such as Novice vs.

Expert, and Gender differences.

Gender. Navigation is an important issue in Web-

based interaction. Some studies have found that

there are relationships between navigation patterns

and gender differences. Large et al., (2002) studied

the behaviour of gender differences when retrieving

information from the Web. They found that males

were more actively engaged in browsing than the

females. Generally, the males explored more

hypertext links per minute, tended to perform more

page jumps per minute, entered more searches in

search engines, and gathered and saved information

more often than the females, although males spent

less time viewing pages than females. These

findings agreed to those of Roy et al., (2003) who

examined student’s navigation styles. Their findings

had shown that males tended to perform more page

jumps per minute, which indicates that males

navigate the information space in a non-linear way.

On the other hand, females browsed the entire linked

documents and followed a linear navigation

approach.

Prior Knowledge. Learners with different levels of

prior knowledge, from experts to novices, benefit

differently from hypermedia learning systems

(Calisir and Gurel, 2003); (Wildemuth, 2004). Many

studies argue that there are different levels of

perceptions in using hypermedia learning systems

which require different ways to navigate (Shin et al.,

1994); (McDonald and Stevenson, 1998); (Calisir

and Gurel, 2003).

Torkzadeh and Lee (2003) discussed how to

understand users’ prior knowledge which can

influence the system success directly and indirectly.

The main conclusions were: (1) Users with lower

domain knowledge gain more benefits from the

hypermedia tutorial than those with higher prior

knowledge, (2) Examples are useful vehicles for the

users with low levels of domain knowledge; and (3)

Users who enjoy the Web and Web-based learning

are more able to cope with the non-linear interaction.

Recent reviews show that the hypothesized

advantages of a high level of learner control are

valid for learners with high prior knowledge only

(Scheiter and Gerjets, 2007); (Schnotz and Heiß,

2009); (Chen et al., 2006). Therefore, learners with

high prior knowledge experience fewer difficulties

and do not need additional support in navigating

hypermedia systems. Moreover, some studies

suggest that users with more system experience have

more efficient navigation strategies than users with

less experience (Fidel et al., 1999); (Hill and

Hannafin, 1997); (Lazonder et al., 2000).

Cognitive Styles. Cognitive style refers to the

preferred way individuals process information and

research into individual differences suggests that a

learner’s cognitive style has considerable effect on

his or her learning in hypermedia systems. Many

studies use statistical methods to analyze learners’

preferences (Lee et al., 2009). Moreover, in a

traditional, non-multimedia learning environment,

matching a user’s cognitive style with content

presentation has been shown to enhance

performance and improve perception (Ford and

Chen, 2001). Cognitive style is known as an

important factor influencing learners’ preferences.

There are many dimensions to cognitive styles, such

as field dependent versus field independent,

visualized versus verbalized or holistic-global versus

focused-detailed. Discussed below is the dimension

of field dependent versus field independent, which is

the most common cognitive style.

Field independent learners have an impersonal

behaviour. They are not interested in others and

show both physical and psychological distance from

people. They tend not to need external referencing

methods to process information and are capable of

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restructuring their knowledge and developing their

own internal referencing methods (Chen and Liu,

2008).

Field dependent learners have interpersonal

behaviour in that they show strong interest in others

and prefer to be physically close to people. They

make greater use of external social influences for

structuring their information. Field dependent

learners are more attentive to social cues than field

independent learners (Chen and Liu, 2008).

2.2 Hypermedia/Program Design

Elements

Hypermedia is advancement over the traditional

Computer Based Learning systems since hypermedia

allows the users to choose their own path to navigate

through the material available. Hypermedia also

allows non-linear access to large amounts of

information and provides users with greater

navigation control to browse information.

Hypermedia provides a flexible approach which

helps users to work with the information from

different points of view. Chen, et al. (2006)

developed a framework to help users with various

levels of prior knowledge. The aim of Chen, et al.

(2006) framework was to integrate users' prior

knowledge into the design of hypermedia learning

systems based on the analysis of previous research.

This framework includes four elements:

disorientation problems, content scope, navigation

tools and additional support. Those elements will be

discussed below:

Disorientation Problems. Many studies argued that

not all learners are able to manage the high level of

links accessed by hypermedia systems. Such studies

indicate that learners' prior knowledge is an

important factor with significant influence. To

quote: "novice hypermedia users met more

disorientation problems and needed analogies with

conventional structures if they were to learn

successfully" (Chen et al., 2006). McDonald and

Stevenson (1998) examined the effects of prior

knowledge on hypermedia navigation and showed

that users who lacked sufficient prior knowledge

demonstrated more disorientation problems because

they tended to open more additional notes; this

suggests they could not recall where they had been

and they had difficulties in finding the information

they required.

Additional Support and Display Options. Many

studies argue that hypermedia learning seems to be

more suitable for expert users. Conversely, novice

users experience more disorientation problems, so it

is essential to provide them with additional support

through mechanisms such as advisement (Shin et al.,

1994), graphical overviews (De Jong and Van der

Hulst, 2002) and structural cues (Hsu and Schwen,

2003).

Chen et al., (2006) argued that research in this area

shows that additional support can be provided to

help novices in hypermedia learning. Advisement,

which provides learners with visual aids and

recommended navigation paths is helpful in

preventing disorientation in non-linear hypermedia

learning. As novice learners cannot rely on their

prior knowledge to help them structure the text,

graphical overviews and structural cues are powerful

and beneficial in providing navigation guidance so

as to ease disorientation problems. The results in the

study by Chen and Liu (2008) showed that "different

cognitive style groups tend to favour different

display options". Moreover, the study of Chen and

Liu (2008) had shown that field-independent

students are capable of extracting relevant

information from the detailed description because

they have a tendency to use their own internal

references. However, field-dependent students rely

more heavily on external cues and prefer to get

concrete examples. Thus, field-dependent users look

at examples, while field-independent users

frequently examine the detailed descriptions.

Content Scope. Chen et al., (2006) indicated that

experts focused on locating detailed information by

using depth-first strategies, started from the first link

on the initial site, then followed links until they

found a suitable site. Conversely, novices tended to

get an overview by using breadth-first strategies,

following the first link of the initial site, without

browsing any links in depth. Chen and Liu (2008)

concluded that field-independent users tend to

browse fewer pages than field-dependent users. An

explanation provided in this study is that field-

independent users tend to be more analytical, are

very task-oriented and pay attention to particular

topics related to their learning. In contrast, field-

dependent users observe objects as a whole and

process information in a global fashion. Thus, they

tend to browse many pages to build an overall

picture of the content. These findings strengthen the

claim of previous research that field-independent

people are good at analytical thought, whereas field-

dependent people have global perceptions

(Goodenough, 1976); (Witkin et al., 1977). To show

additional topics for field-dependent students who

would like to get a global picture of the subject

content, a pop-up window can be used.

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Navigation Tools. Navigation tools are used in

current hypermedia learning systems, most

commonly hierarchical maps and alphabetical

indices, each of which provides different functions

for information access. For example, hierarchical

maps provide an overview of the global structure of

the context, while alphabetical indices are useful for

locating specific information (Chen and Macredie,

2002).

Carmel et al., (1992) found that experts were more

interested in using tools that could facilitate the

location of detailed information related to specific

entities. Pazzani (1991) found that experts profited

most from a flexible path, whereas novices benefited

most from a structured path. Moreover, in the study

of Möller and Müller-Kalthoff (2000), novices

appeared to benefit from hierarchical maps, which

can facilitate the integration of individual topics. A

possible explanation for these findings is that the

hierarchical map not only reveals the document

structure (i.e., the physical arrangement of a

document), but also reflects the conceptual structure

(i.e., the relationships between different concepts).

In other words, the hierarchical map can help

novices incorporate the document structure into the

conceptual structure, which helps them to integrate

their knowledge. Research of Chen et al., (2006) had

shown that experts and novices had different

preferences to, and get benefit from, different

navigation support. Expert learners need to have

navigation tools that provide them with free

navigation and find specific information that they

need. Index tools, content lists and search tools are

shown to be helpful for them. However, navigation

tools such as map and menu tools are beneficial for

novice learners in hypermedia learning systems. In

Chen and Liu (2008), results showed that field-

dependent and field-independent users were

provided different preferences for navigation tools.

Field-independent users often prefer the alphabetical

index, which provides users with the means to locate

particular information without going through a fixed

sequence (Chen and Macredie, 2002). On the

contrary, field-dependent users often use the

hierarchical map to illustrate the relationships

among different concepts (Turns et al., 2000) which

reflects the conceptual structure of the subject

content (Nilsson and Mayer, 2002).

In Table 1 we show the results of the study by Chen

and Liu (2008) which can be considered as a

mechanism to help designers develop WBI

programs; it achieved this by accommodating the

preferences of both field independent (FI) and field

dependent (FD) learners. The previous discussions

show that there are many studies engaged in

studying learner’s behaviors using hypermedia

systems, trying to accommodate their preferences in

the design of such systems. Using some existing

designs (Chen and Liu, 2008); (Chen et al., 2006)

we built our system by accommodating learner’s

preferences; our proposed system was conducted to

provide researchers with factors may help to do

investigations on the impact of individual

differences after using our system. Many studies

were engaged in studying the preferences and

performance of learners using different measuring

factors after using hypermedia systems; those

measuring factors could be time, number of visited

pages and gained score (Large et al., 2002); (Roy et

al., 2003); (McDonald and Stevenson, 1998);

(Mitchell et al., 2005); (Kim, 2001); (Chen and Liu,

2008); (Chen et al., 2006). The WBI program

provides the users with hyperlinks within the

hierarchical map on the right frame and an

alphabetical index on the left frame as shown in

Figure 1.

3 METHODOLOGY

Our WBI program presents instructions on how to

complete several tasks using Microsoft PowerPoint.

We chose Microsoft PowerPoint as the subject for

the experiment because it has been taught to all of

our students during their high school years.

Furthermore, it is one subject that is taught to all of

the different majors in the Higher Institute of

Telecommunication and Navigation, where the

experiment was conducted.

3.1 Design of the Proposed System

In our research, our objective is to use the

mechanism from Chen and Liu (2008) as shown in

Table 1 and the frame work of Chen et al., (2006), to

develop an agile WBI program; the program should

be flexible enough to offer multiple options tailored

to the distinctive individual differences such as field

dependent and field independent in addition to

experts and novices learners. The WBI program will

focus on the structure of using three key design

elements such as navigation tools, display options

and content scope.

Navigation Tools. Our WBI program provides the

users with hyperlinks within the text based

instructions, navigation tools, including a

hierarchical map and alphabetical index (Figure 1

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Table 1: Results from Chen and Liu (2008). FI: Field Independent, FD: Field Dependent.

Navigation tool Display options Content scope

Alphabetical

Index

Hierarchical

Map

Detailed

Description

Concrete

Example

Specific

information

Overall

Picture





Figure 1: The main page of the WBI.

The following are the description of the window and

its two frames:

1) Hierarchical Map (Figure 2): In this frame, a user

can find a hierarchical structure that includes 31

topics displayed in 5 main sections. Each topic is

a hyperlink when a user click on it two actions

will happen, the first one is that the current

window (including the left and the right frame)

will be changed to another view where the

chosen topic will be highlighted. At the same

time the topic title will be displayed under the

index on the left frame. The other action is that a

popup window will be introduced to show the

instructions of the chosen topic (Figure 3).

2) Index of the Topic: When the user selects a letter

trying to search for a specific topic, the frame

will be changed to show keywords of some

topics to give the user the ability to choose a

specific topic (Figure 4). However the right

frame will not be changed.

Display Options. Chen and Liu (2008) state: “field-

dependent students rely more heavily on external

cues, thus, they prefer to get concrete guidance from

examples. One of the possible ways to address their

different needs is to show both of the display

options, detailed description and concrete examples,

within a table. By using a table, all of the relevant

information about a particular case can put together

in one place. For example, one column can be used

to present the detailed descriptions of a particular

topic, while the other column provides the

illustration with examples for that topic”.

In our WBI, each topic will be presented in two

display options, description details and illustrated

examples (Chen et al., 2006). Figure 3 shows the

design of a topic page presenting the same structure

(description and examples). All the topics reached

from the index and map conform to the same design

(Figure 3) so that we do not influence participant

choice over the two different navigational tools.

Figure 2: Chosen topic from the Hierarchical Map frame.

Figure 3: The webpage design of the popup window to

display the topic contents.

Content Scope. Chen and Liu (2008) also state:

“field-dependent students use a global approach to

process information so they tend to build an overall

picture by browsing more pages. One of the

potential solutions to deal with their different

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requirements is to use a pop-up window, which is a

secondary window to provide additional information

about selected objects by clicking a hypertext link”.

The WBI program provides the users with an

additional hyperlinked popup window named

“Further Details” which displays deeper instructions

about the topic they are currently viewing (Figure 5).

A link for the Further Details’ popup window can be

found in the Topic window (Figure 3). The user can

then close any currently opened popup windows and

return to the frames page (shown in Figure 2).

Figure 4: Topics displayed after choosing a letter from the

index.

Figure 5: Displaying further details of the chosen topic.

3.2 Procedure

The experiment consisted of four phases. In Phase 1,

participants were asked to refresh their prior

knowledge by practicing 30 minutes on PowerPoint.

Phase 2, a pre-test (a paper test prior to performing

the experiment via WBI) was conducted on the

participants to measure their prior knowledge

(novice or expert). In Phase 3, all participants were

given an introduction to the use of the WBI program

highlighting the map and index navigational tools.

Students were given the freedom of choice between

those tools. The students were then handed out a set

of tasks to complete on PowerPoint while utilizing

the WBI. All of their interactions with the WBI were

logged by the system. The maximum allowed time

to complete the tasks was 2 hours. In Phase 4, the

students were given another paper test (post-test) to

measure their knowledge gain from utilizing the

WBI program. Gain score (G-score) was calculated

by subtracting the pre-test score from the post-test

score. Both pre-test and post-test consisted of 20

multiple-choice questions. Each question had five

different answers with: the "I don’t know" choice

being the last. Students were instructed to choose

only one response. The questions on both tests

targeted similar key points. However, they were

rephrased on the post-test. Students were awarded

one point for each correct answer.

3.3 Participants

The experiment was conducted at the Higher

Institute of Telecommunication and Navigation

(HITN) in Kuwait. There were a total of 91

participants with an age range of 18 to 25 years.

Males and Females were studied independently

during the experiment. Participants had different

computing and internet skills and were classified in

terms of cognitive style and prior knowledge based

on the experiment. In keeping with findings from

previous studies, field independent learners favored

using the index navigational tool. Conversely, field

dependent learners preferred to use the map

navigational tool (Chen and Macredie, 2002); (Chen

and Liu, 2008); (Ford and Chen, 2000). We used

these findings to identify the field dependent and

field independent learners using our WBI program.

This was deduced by analyzing the log file of each

participant.

We calculated the number of Map and Index

pages that each user had navigated to. A data mining

approach using Hierarchical clustering procedure

was used. A hierarchical clustering procedure

involves the construction of a hierarchy or tree-like

structure, a nested sequence of partitions (Fraley and

Raftery, 1998). Using a hierarchical clustering test,

to identify learners as field dependent and field

independent learners, we found that if the number of

map navigated pages was more than 50% of the total

navigated pages, the participant was identified as

field dependent. On the other hand, if the number of

index navigated pages was greater than 50% of the

total navigated pages, the participant was identified

as a field independent. The 50% scale is the

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midpoint between the two navigational methods and

therefore it was considered as the cutting point

between the two cognitive styles. As for the prior

knowledge level of the students, novice (N) or

expert (E), we calculated the mean of the pre-test

scores of all the participants. If the participant’s

score in the pre-test was less than or equal to this

mean then the participant was identified as novice

(N), whereas if the participant’s pre-test score was

greater than the mean, then the participant was

identified as expert (E). Table 2 shows number of

participants after identifying them in their individual

differences classes. To check the validity of our

experiment from any threats or biases, firstly, the

participants chosen in the experiment had an age

range from 18 to 25 years who achieved high school

diploma as their last educational level; this built on a

foundation of similar intellectual backgrounds and

exposure to computer and internet skills.

Table 2: Number of participants in each class; FD: Field

dependent, FI: Field independent.

Individual

differences

classes

Cognitive

style

Gender

Prior

knowledge

FD FI M F E N

Number of

participants

51 40 45 46 48 43

Secondly, a pilot study was done on two

participants to check the validity of the tools used in

our experiment. Thirdly, we logged the display of

popup pages when the participant clicks on any link

in the WBI program. After observing the log file of

each participant (91 participants), we removed any

redundant popup pages records shown in the log file

(Table 3). Those redundant records were probably

caused by a lag from our remote website’s server or

a lag from the local network in the classroom.

Redundant pages were manually removed from the

log to avoid any discrepancy in our analysis. It

should be noted that the logged time of the records

having a fraction of a second in time difference were

considered redundant. The difference (fraction of a

second) in recorded time did not therefore affect the

participant’s total time spent on topic pages. The

mean time spent on topic pages by the participants’

to be 2015.36 seconds.

Finally, to minimize the error in the collected

data, we eliminated the data from four participants.

Three of these did not complete the pre-test and

post-test of the experiment. The last one did not

have a log for the interactivity with the WBI

program as he/she did not utilize the WBI program

to complete the requested tasks.

Table 3: A sample of the log file showing the redundant

pages (bold and shaded).

Time of hitting

the page

Pop-up page