DESIGN OF A FLEXIBLE E-ASSESSMENT SYSTEM TO ACCOMMODATE DIVERSE LEARNING STYLES: A MATHEMATICS CASE STUDY

Innovative technological developments in education promote flexibility in the provision of students’ learning resources. Individual learners have different preferences for the way they learn. For example, some are visual, some are auditory and others are kinesthetic learners. We investigate if such preferences can be applied to assessments as well. In this paper we describe our endeavour to accommodate diverse learning styles in a formative e-assessment system for the Mathematics subject. The design is inspired by the Design Methodology Management technology which helps achieve the flexibility of the system. The process involves converting the set Mathematics questions to suit the different learning styles by using appropriate question types like multiple choice or text entry as well as media like audio files. The questions are then stored in a database tagged by their learning style identification number. The database also contains records of students’ details including their learning style identification numbers. When a student logs into the system to do the assessment, they are presented with the relevant questions that match their learning style. To get their learning styles, the students complete a VARK survey and then, using the students' identification numbers, the results are added to their details in the assessment database as a number representing their learning style. The learning styles represented are therefore, visual, auditory, read/write, kinesthetic and also multimodal which is a mixture of the other learning styles. The study provides some insight into the implications of learning styles for formative assessment. Students are motivated to work on problems that are presented in their preferred mode. Motivation leads to engagement with the learning material and subsequently to high chances of success in summative exams. We therefore recommend that as much as possible, students are offered the option to take formative assessments which suit their learning styles.