Learning Styles and Graphical User Interface: Is

There Any Preference?

V.Dedi*, S. Markovi** and N.Jovanovi**
*

Information Technology School, Belgrade, Serbia

Advanced Business of Professional Studies/IT, Blace, Serbia
velimir.dedic@its.edu.rs, msuzana@vpskp.edu.rs, nenadjov@vpskp.edu.rs
**

AbstractImplementing personalisation in Web based

environment depends not only on developing appropriate
architectures, but also on incorporating human factors
considerations at an early design stage. This paper forms the
first part, introducing the concepts and issues surrounding
the development of personalised learning environments,
which incorporates learning styles. The second part presents
methodology and results on our research aiming to
determine influences of learning styles determined and
preferences to graphical user interface. Learning styles for
students participating in the study were determined by
applying standard 80-items questionnaire by Honey and
Mumford.

I.
INTRODUCTION
It is not yet clear how learners perceive e-learning
environments, and in what ways they assist or hinder
learners in their learning [1], [2]. Imel [3] reports that
much e-learning fails to live up to learners expectations.
It would be better to focus attention on the students
experience of e-learning and to listen to students voices
in seeking to extend our knowledge of e-learning [4].
When designing an e-learning course [5], instructors are
faced with many considerations and decisions that
consequently affect how students experience instruction,
construct and process knowledge. These decisions related
to the didactic design of a course may refer to one of five
fields of instruction:
Course design, learning material, and electronic course
environment: The quality of the learning environment and
the easiness of using a learning management system also
contribute to the success and course satisfaction of an elearning course and performance. We believe that
graphical user interface (GUI) may pose significant role in
the context of overall perception of e-learning experience.
Some of the most powerful concepts in user interface
design come about by applying specific decision-making
strategies that can be grouped into the following overall
elements [6]:
(1) Assisting user retention (promoting learnability),
putting the user in control, creating logical and consistent
screen design and providing efficient user guidance.
(2) Interaction between students and an instructor,
which supports knowledge construction, motivation, and
the establishment of a social relationship.
(3) Interaction with peer students
(4) Individual learning processes
(5) Course outcomes

Liaw and Huang [7] suggested that four elements

should be considered when developing e-learning
environments:
environmental
characteristics,
environmental satisfaction, learning activities, and
learners characteristics.
Environmental characteristics, such as synchronous or
asynchronous interaction, will create an environment that
allows learners to share information. Furthermore, it
determines how to retrieve useful information.
Environmental satisfaction will enhance learners
perceptions of technology that might promote their
participation in the learning processes.
According to the learning style there are two basic
researches:
Researchers have investigated that presentation of
learning content and learning tools are designated based
upon learning styles in the online learning environments.
It is a factor which impacts academic achievements of the
learner.
Researchers have used learning styles as a supportive
factor to design the online learning environments for
personalized online learning.
In addition, the user interface becomes the major
channel to convey information [8]: a well-designed and
friendly enough interface is thus the key element in
helping users to get the best results quickly. Interface
settings will affect the quality of students learning that
accommodates their needs in terms of personalising the
content, structure, and presentation.
This paper presents methodology and results on our
research aiming to determine influences of learning styles
determined and preferences to graphical user interface.
Learning styles for students participating in the study were
determined by applying standard 80-items questionnaire
by Honey and Mumford.
It may be interesting to explore how a certain learning
style detected for a particular learner affects his or her
GUI preference.
LEARNING STYLE - THE HONEY AND MUMFORD
APPROACH
Learning style is a distinctive and habitual manner of
acquiring knowledge, skills or attitudes through study or
experience while learning preference is favouring of one
particular mode of teaching over another [9]. Learning
styles are also considered a valid predictor of success in a
Web-based learning environment [10].
There are many classification schemes of learning
styles. Almost every learning style model has its own
II.

assessment tool in a form of a questionnaire. These

learning style inventories include various amounts of
questions about personality, study attitude and behaviour
[11]. Learning style inventories help people to be more
aware of their learning style but it has to take into account
that they have also limitations.
The researchers [12] list 71 different learning styles in
their review on Learning style and pedagogy in post-16
learning. 60 of the styles have their own measurement
tool. They divided learning styles in five groups:
Genetic and other constitutionally based learning
styles and preferences including the four modalities
Visual-Auditory-Kinaesthetic-Tactile (VAKT),
Cognitive structure,
Stable personality type,
Flexibly stable learning preferences (Kolbs Learning
Styles, The Honey and Mumford's learning style model
and The Felder-Silverman model),
Learning approaches and strategies.
A. The Honey and Mumford Approach
A more promising alternative than the Kolb LSI may be
a measure developed by Honey and Mumford [13], named
the Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ). The Kolb model
is the theoretical background to Honey and Mumfords
LSQ, which has four styles: activist, reflector, theorist and
pragmatist.
Activists are ready and willing to perform shorter tasks
in the present. They enjoy lectures, reading, exercises, and
activities in which they dont have to be immediate
leaders.
Reflectors dont like to participate while they are
learning. Theyd prefer to sit and watch first, let the
information absorb, plan their own course of action, and
then implement the new techniques theyve learned.
Theorists prefer models, theories, and anything that
presents an idea in an organized fashion. The models
dont even have to be realistic as long as they make a
point.
Pragmatists search for realistic examples that relate
directly to the task at hand. They dont want to waste time
with hypothetical situations when they could be learning
how to apply something directly to their own job tasks.
THE INFLUENCE OF LEARNING STYLES ON GUI
PREFERENCES: RESEARCH METHODS AND RESULTS

III.

Students participating in the study were enrolled at oneyear program of professional education (software
development for Internet), in web-based distance learning
fashion. Learning management system used was in-housebuilt web application (named DLS). Total of 210 students
were invited to participate in the study, what required
physical presence of subjects. Total of 51 students took
participation in the study and all of them have returned
answer sheets with properly indicated choice. There were
36 (68.9%) male respondents, and 15 (31.1%) female
ones. Distribution of GUI preferences is shown in Table 1.
Learning styles for students participating in the study
was determined by applying standard 80-items
questionnaire by Honey and Mumford. Results by
participant gender are presented in Table 2 and total
results are shown by Fig.1. The most of students (37.8%)

TABLE I.
DISTRIBUTION OF GUI PREFERENCES BY GENDER
Interface
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
12
No preference
Total

Gender
F
2
4
1
2
1
1
0
0
1
1
1
1
15

Total
M
3
4
0
2
6
6
1
6
0
3
0
5
36

5
8
1
4
7
7
1
6
1
4
1
6
51

were of assimilator learning style, while the rarest learning

style was accommodator (4.4%).
The total sample of 51 distance learning student was
subjected to the procedure devised to determine
correlation between learning styles and GUI preferences.
The procedure was explained to the subjects. The
procedure was the following: each subject was placed in
front of 17 computer screen, which initially was
displaying black full screen. After five minutes adjustment
period subjects were instructed to hit any key on their
keyboards and 12 different GUIs were displayed for 15
seconds each, with five seconds black full screen between
every two consecutive GUIs. Every GUI was numbered,
with large number between 1 and 12 displayed in the
upper right corner of the screen. Number was coloured in
a distinctive light green, very different from colours used
in GUIs. Table 3 shows GUI display sequence. The
complete circle of displaying all 12 GUIs was repeated for
three times.
There were three dominant colours of interface, two
interface widths and two sidebar positions, which gave
total of 12 combinations of GUI .
GUI colours were reduced to the three particular values
due to limitations imposed by corporate colour scheme
that have reduced full colour spectrum to red, blue and
grey for designing interface.
Interface width is defined as ratio of total browser width
and active application width. Two different interface
widths were used: normal width and full screen width.
Normal width employed total browser width to active
application width ratio of 0.7, while full screen width had
total browser width to active application width ratio of 1.
TABLE II.
LEARNING STYLE AND GUI PREFERENCE
Learning style
Converger
Diverger
Accomodator
Assimilator
Borderline or undefined

Gender
F
M
0
3
4
5
1
1
6
16
4
11

Total

15

36

Total
3
9
2
22
15
51

TABLE IV.
BINARY LOGISTIC REGRESSION
Variables in the Equation
B

S.E.

Wald

df

Sig.

Exp(
B)

AC

-.178

.091

3.83

Step
1

.050

.837

.001

40.7

5
Cons

3.70

1.09

tant

11.3
90

31

a)
Variables not in the Equation
Score

Figure 1. Proportions of learning styles determined

Sidebars were basically placeholders for DLS controls

(calendar, content browsing, and multimedia download).
Two different sidebar positions were examined: one with
a single sidebar placed left, and another one with two
sidebars (left and right). Right-sided sidebar only was not
used.
Subjects, provided with simple answer sheet, with
instruction: Please encircle number that matches GUI
you would like to have as a new interface in your DLS? ,
and having a list of numbers (1-12), were asked only to
encircle a GUI number that matched a GUI they found to
be the most suitable for them. Respondents were also
having the opportunity to encircle number 13 which
indicated no preference.
Chi-square test was used to determine if there was any
differences in learning styles with respect to gender, but
no significant difference was found (p=0.602, with 4
degrees of freedom). Also, chi-square test do not indicate
any significant differences in GUI preference by gender
distribution (p=0.188, 11 degrees of freedom).
The next step in the experiment is to determine gender
distribution of interface colour choices. Chi-square test
supports the conclusion that interface colour distribution
was not random (p=0.025, with 3 degrees of freedom). It
is the blue interface colour that is predominantly chosen
TABLE III.
GUI SEQUENCE CODE
GUI sequence code

Colour

Sidebars

Width

Red

One

Normal

Red

One

Wide

Red

Two

Normal

Red

Two

Wide

Blue

One

Normal

Blue

One

Wide

Blue

Two

Normal

Blue

Two

Wide

Grey

One

Normal

10

Grey

One

Wide

11

Grey

Two

Normal

12

Grey

Two

Wide

Step
1

df

Sig.

CE

.229

.632

Variabl

RO

.610

.435

es

AE

1.266

.260

Gender

1.275

.259

2.074

.722

Overall Statistics

b)
by male students to account for the significant difference
in colour distribution.
Table 5 summarizes relationship between learning
styles detected and interface preferences for the students.
Chi-square test did not find any significant differences in
distribution of learning styles detected in respect to
interface styles chosen (p=0.359, with 44 degrees of
freedom).
Binary logistic test was applied in order to determine
correlation between learning style scores (AC, CE, AE,
RO), students gender and having preference towards
interface. Results are indicating that AC score influences
the strength of preference towards GUI choice (Table 4).
IV. DISCUSSION
Not many research reports were available at the time of
our work. We are concentrating our discussion on three
journal articles reporting results on experiments designed
to determine some of features on relationships between
GUI preferences and learning styles.
In [8] authors argue that different cognitive styles are
correlated to content organization, search result
presentation and navigation structure of a web directory.
Whilst web directory was not the environment of our
research, and different instruments were used to classify
individual learners, it is concluded that with respect to
GUI-learning styles correlation, studies are not directly
comparable, but we believe that it makes sense to compare
some of results. The study of Magoulas et al. employed
Cognitive Styles Analysis for learners classification, and
presented four different types of interface design.
Cognitive Styles Analysis recognizes field-dependent
(FD) and field-independent (FI) learners, where it is
reported that field-dependent learners are more influenced
by external structure and format of the content presented
within a web-interface. Field-independent learners are

TABLE V.
INTERFACE PREFERENCE AND LEARNING STYLE DETECTED
Learning style

Interface
3

Converger
Diverger
Accomodator
Assimilator
Borderline or undefined
Total

Total
6

12

10

No
prefer.

22

15

51

however less influenced in aforementioned context.

Authors are reporting that differences between fielddependent and field-independent learners are supporting
what was previously found in literature (FI learners are
more focused on procedural details of information
presentation, more active in information search, having
preferences towards alphabetical ordering of content,
needing less guidance in restructuring personal learning
space, while FD learners are more focused on global view
on information space, like relevance-based ordering of
presented information and need more guidance in
restructuring personal learning space as they are prone to
information seek delays due to information overload). As
we have found that AC score solely contributes to
decision whether a learner has preference towards a
certain GUI, it would be meaningful to further investigate
correlation between active conceptualization score and
field dependence/independence. It may be that only for
those individuals with high AC score testing for field
dependence/independence might provide meaningful
detailed adaptation of GUI.
In [14] it was reported that learners with different learning
styles (Kolbs Learning Styles Inventory was used) exhibit
different navigational needs. Research was focused on the
processing continuum of Kolbs model, contrasting RO
and AE scores. It was found that explorers (learners with
high AE score) are more prone to jumping around learning
modules, while observers (learners with high RO score)
were more likely to follow the predefined path. This
finding, not investigating GUI features but navigational
preferences, can be compared with our results in the
broader context. From Liegles and Janickis results in
[14] we can conclude that assimilators and divergers,
learners having high RO scores are more likely to follow
predefined learning path, while accommodators and
convergers are more likely to express non-linear
behaviour when browsing learning content. Having our
research taken into account, it is our conjecture that only
assimilators and convergers might need special attention
to particular features of GUI.
Authors of study presented in [15] have conducted
research based on Kolb Learning Inventory learning styles
classification. They have found that most of students that
have reported that look and feel of the GUI was important
were of diverging learning style. It is reported in this study
that both demographic and academic background of
students and learning style determined contributed to GUI
preferences. This finding contradicts with our results.
However, authors are reporting of learners clustered over

simplicity of interface, balanced colours of interface and

interface friendliness, but relevance of learning style
association with interface features is inconclusive.
I.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The planning of web-based teaching with respect to
learning styles is complicated because every learners
individual needs cannot be taken into consideration. The
planning has to be done in a way that different styles are
offered different learning methods.
We have found that learners preference towards a
specific GUI is not correlated to any particular learning
style. We did find that having preference towards a GUI is
associated with AC score of Kolbs model. This implies
that learners with high AC score should be offered to
personalize their GUI. Learning management system
should offer such a GUI adaptation feature upon learning
style detection. It would be beneficial to conduct learners
satisfaction and learning outcomes measurement
experiment that would put our research results to the
further test.
The result of this study could be of specific interest in
educational foundations and training institutes; in
particular those that want to transfer some of their
conventional courses onto the web.
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[8]

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