Matching Learning Styles and Pathways of Interactive Learning Objects to those of the Student: a Double Blind Study of Students in an Introductory College Geology Class
Jeremy Dunning, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN and Arjuna Learning Design LLC, Indianapolis, IN; Sunand Bhattacharya, Arjuna Learning Design LLC, Indianapolis, IN; and Katherine Dunning, ITT Technical Services, Indianapolis, IN: and Taylor Zitman, Wijayo Siswaro, Rachel Dobbs, Guinetta Williams, Collin Sanusi, Stephan Nicklow, and Kevin Corrigan (students) Indiana University, Bloomington IN
The interactive multimedia technology tools available to educators today provide an opportunity to build into the distance or traditional course through learning objects, highly interactive experiential exercises that allow the instructor and the student to obtain an accurate image of the student’s level of understanding of the content throughout the course. The instructor can not only determine that a student does not understand some aspect of the content of the course, but may also determine exactly what part of the content the student fails to comprehend. Of more importance is the fact that students may also get an immediate and accurate map of their own mastery of the content. To create absorbing and successful traditional, blended, and online classes, a broader cooperative design structure that results in learning objects that match the learning styles of the students. In this double blind study a group of students in an introductory college geology class evaluated eight learning objects and six media objects in terms of the learning style they feel they employed, the learning pathway they followed, and the learning objective of each exercise. This was then compared to the same factors as described by the subject matter expert, an independent instructional designer, and an independent curriculum developer. The results indicate that there is significant overlap between the responses of the subject matter expert/instructor (who designed the learning objects) and the students in terms of instructional objective and perceived learning style and less agreement among the students and the instructional designer and curriculum developer. The agreement among the students varied from a high of 78% agreement on perceived learning style of an individual learning object, to a low 43% on pathway in a learning object. The results of the study strongly suggest that instructor/subject matter experts should be extensively engaged in the design of the learning objects contained in their courses.To learn about learning styles, click the link below. The learning styles used in this study are consistent with the Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning, which is described and demonstrated in the link below.
Here are the geology learning objects;
Summary of Results
The chart below summarizes the survey results each of the students ( S-1- S-8), the instructional designer (ID), the instructor/SME/designer of the course ( Instructor/SME) and curriculum developer (CD).
