Learning styles: individualizing computer-based learning environments

While the need to adapt teaching to the needs of a student is generally acknowledged (see Corno and Snow, 1986, for a wide review of the literature), little is known about the impact of individual learner-differences on the quality of learning attained within computer-based learning environments (CBLEs). What evidence there is appears to support the notion that individual differences have implications for the degree of success or failure experienced by students (Ford and Ford, 1992) and by trainee end-users of software packages (Bostrom et al, 1990). The problem is to identify the way in which specific individual characteristics of a student interact with particular features of a CBLE, and how the interaction affects the quality of the resultant learning. Teaching in a CBLE is likely to require a subset of teaching strategies different from that subset appropriate to more traditional environments, and the use of a machine may elicit different behaviours from those normally arising in a classroom context