User Modeling Approach for Dyslexic Students in Virtual Learning Environments

Abstract

Dyslexia or reading disability is one of the most common learning disabilities. It is defined as a disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and sociocultural opportunity. In this paper the authors focus on the potential benefits of the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for students with dyslexia to promote the learning process, by considering the relationship between their learning style preferences and their cognitive traits in virtual learning environments. At this propose the authors investigated the relationship between dyslexic's learning style and cognitive trait within the hypothesis that dyslexic learners may have possible preferences in virtual learning environment, which may be used to improve the dyslexic user modelling. The aim of this paper is to provide an adaptive learning environment for users with dyslexia based on their learning styles preferences and their cognitive traits.

The Impact of Adaptation Based on Students' Dyslexia Type: An Empirical Evaluation of Students' Satisfaction

“…Another proposal has been an adaptive e-learning system that can personalize the learning experiences presented to students with dyslexia based upon dyslexia type, knowledge level and learning style [6]. In addition, an adaptive e-learning system based on learning style and cognitive traits of dyslexia has been suggested [10]. These are, though, just proposed frameworks.…”

“…They lack an implementation and, in particular, a rigorous controlled evaluation with a useful number of participants. There have been many proposals about how to use different factors related to characteristics of students with dyslexia to inform adaptation in e-learning systems [6,7,10]. However, adaptation based on dyslexia type is still under-investigated.…”

Using scaffolding to formalize digital coach support for low-literate learners

“…In the specific context of education and learner support, user models are used to (i.a.) enable adaptive educational and e-learning systems (Ciloglugil and Inceoglu 2012;Tadlaoui et al 2016), personalize online learning environments (Kaya and Altun 2011), and support learners with particular information access and modality needs (Benmarrakchi et al 2017). Note that not all instances of system adaptation to user behavior count as or involve user modeling.…”

Investigating Reading Experience of Dyslexic Children Through Dyslexia-Friendly Online Learning Environment

“…Itoftenleadstoaninaccuratereadingthataffectscomprehensionandmakesreadingtaskextremely difficult.Dyslexiaismainlycharacterizedbydifficultiesinreadingandwritingrelatedtodeficits inphonological,orthographic,visualandsemanticprocessingduringtheidentificationofwords.It includeshesitantandlaboredreadingwithalowlevelofcomprehension,confusionbetweendifferent soundsinwords,substitutionofsounds,failuretorecognizefamiliarwords,attentiondifficulties, missinglines,addingoromittingextrawordsintotextsandincreasedfatigue. Recently,researchershaveshownanincreasedinterestintheuseofICTineducationtosupport childrenwithSLDs (Sidhu&Manzura,2011)(Benmarrakchietal.,2015,2017a,2017b.Some studieshighlighttheneedfordyslexic-friendlyfontsindigitalandprintedbookssuchasDyslexie (Leeuw, 2010), Opendyslexic 1 , Sylexiad (Hillier, 2008) and read regular 2 . In a study carried out by Bachmann & Mengheri (2018) to assess the significance of EasyReading which is a specific readingfontdesignedespeciallyfordyslexia.Atotalof533studentswereassessedbasedonreading taskspresentedwithtwodifferentfontsTimes New RomanandEasyReading.Thereadingtestwas conductedinItalian.Theresultsshowedastatisticallyrelevantdifferencebetweentheperformances.…”

“…Recently,researchershaveshownanincreasedinterestintheuseofICTineducationtosupport childrenwithSLDs (Sidhu&Manzura,2011)(Benmarrakchietal.,2015,2017a,2017b.Some studieshighlighttheneedfordyslexic-friendlyfontsindigitalandprintedbookssuchasDyslexie (Leeuw, 2010), Opendyslexic 1 , Sylexiad (Hillier, 2008) and read regular 2 . In a study carried out by Bachmann & Mengheri (2018) to assess the significance of EasyReading which is a specific readingfontdesignedespeciallyfordyslexia.Atotalof533studentswereassessedbasedonreading taskspresentedwithtwodifferentfontsTimes New RomanandEasyReading.Thereadingtestwas conductedinItalian.Theresultsshowedastatisticallyrelevantdifferencebetweentheperformances.…”