An experimental study to evaluate learning style personalisation in web-based adaptive e-learning systems

Learning style is one of the individual differences that play an important but controversial role in the learning process. On the other hand, previous research suggested that learning styles significantly affect student learning because they refer to how learners process and organise information. To this end, this paper presents an approach to integrate learning styles into adaptive e-learning hypermedia. The main objective was to develop a learning style based on adaptive e-learning hypermedia system (LS-AEHS) and assess the effect of adapting educational materials individualised to the student's learning style. To achieve the main objectives, a case study was developed. An experiment between two groups of students was conducted to evaluate the impact on learning achievement. Inferential statistics were applied to make inferences from the sample data to more general conditions was designed to evaluate the new approach of matching learning materials with learning styles and their influence on student's learning achievement. The findings support the use of learning styles as a guideline for adaptation into the adaptive e-learning hypermedia systems.