Learning Styles and Graphical User Interface: Is
There Any Preference?
V.Dedić*, S. Marković** and N.Jovanović**
*
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
Abstract—Implementing 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 learner’s expectations.
It would be better to focus attention on the student’s
experience of e-learning and “to listen to student’s 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 e-
learning 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.
II. 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
assessment tool in a form of a questionnaire. These TABLE I.
DISTRIBUTION OF GUI PREFERENCES BY GENDER
learning style inventories include various amounts of
questions about personality, study attitude and behaviour Interface Gender Total
[11]. Learning style inventories help people to be more F M
aware of their learning style but it has to take into account 1 2 3 5
that they have also limitations. 2 4 4 8
3 1 0 1
The researchers [12] list 71 different learning styles in 4 2 2 4
their review on Learning style and pedagogy in post-16 5 1 6 7
learning. 60 of the styles have their own measurement 6 1 6 7
tool. They divided learning styles in five groups: 7 0 1 1
8 0 6 6
• Genetic and other constitutionally based learning 9 1 0 1
styles and preferences including the four modalities 10 1 3 4
Visual-Auditory-Kinaesthetic-Tactile (VAKT), 12 1 0 1
• Cognitive structure, No preference 1 5 6
Total 15 36 51
• Stable personality type,
• Flexibly stable learning preferences (Kolb’s Learning
Styles, The Honey and Mumford's learning style model were of assimilator learning style, while the rarest learning
and The Felder-Silverman model), style was accommodator (4.4%).
• Learning approaches and strategies. The total sample of 51 distance learning student was
subjected to the procedure devised to determine
A. The Honey and Mumford Approach correlation between learning styles and GUI preferences.
The procedure was explained to the subjects. The
A more promising alternative than the Kolb LSI may be procedure was the following: each subject was placed in
a measure developed by Honey and Mumford [13], named front of 17” computer screen, which initially was
the Learning Styles Questionnaire (LSQ). The Kolb model displaying black full screen. After five minutes adjustment
is the theoretical background to Honey and Mumford’s period subjects were instructed to hit any key on their
LSQ, which has four styles: activist, reflector, theorist and keyboards and 12 different GUIs were displayed for 15
pragmatist. seconds each, with five seconds black full screen between
Activists are ready and willing to perform shorter tasks every two consecutive GUIs. Every GUI was numbered,
in the present. They enjoy lectures, reading, exercises, and with large number between 1 and 12 displayed in the
activities in which they don’t have to be immediate upper right corner of the screen. Number was coloured in
leaders. a distinctive light green, very different from colours used
Reflectors don’t like to participate while they are in GUIs. Table 3 shows GUI display sequence. The
learning. They’d prefer to sit and watch first, let the complete circle of displaying all 12 GUIs was repeated for
information absorb, plan their own course of action, and three times.
then implement the new techniques they’ve learned. There were three dominant colours of interface, two
Theorists prefer models, theories, and anything that interface widths and two sidebar positions, which gave
presents an idea in an organized fashion. The models total of 12 combinations of GUI .
don’t even have to be realistic as long as they make a GUI colours were reduced to the three particular values
point. due to limitations imposed by corporate colour scheme
Pragmatists search for realistic examples that relate that have reduced full colour spectrum to red, blue and
directly to the task at hand. They don’t want to waste time grey for designing interface.
with hypothetical situations when they could be learning Interface width is defined as ratio of total browser width
how to apply something directly to their own job tasks. and active application width. Two different interface
widths were used: normal width and full screen width.
III. THE INFLUENCE OF LEARNING STYLES ON GUI Normal width employed total browser width to active
PREFERENCES: RESEARCH METHODS AND RESULTS application width ratio of 0.7, while full screen width had
Students participating in the study were enrolled at one- total browser width to active application width ratio of 1.
year program of professional education (software
development for Internet), in web-based distance learning TABLE II.
LEARNING STYLE AND GUI PREFERENCE
fashion. Learning management system used was in-house-
built web application (named DLS). Total of 210 students Learning style Gender Total
were invited to participate in the study, what required F M
physical presence of subjects. Total of 51 students took Converger 0 3 3
participation in the study and all of them have returned Diverger 4 5 9
answer sheets with properly indicated choice. There were Accomodator 1 1 2
36 (68.9%) male respondents, and 15 (31.1%) female 6 16 22
Assimilator
ones. Distribution of GUI preferences is shown in Table 1.
Borderline or undefined 4 11 15
Learning styles for students participating in the study
was determined by applying standard 80-items Total 15 36 51
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 IV.
BINARY LOGISTIC REGRESSION

Variables in the Equation

B S.E. Wald df Sig. Exp(
B)
AC -.178 .091 3.83 1 .050 .837

Step 5
a
1 Cons 3.70 1.09 11.3 1 .001 40.7
tant 7 8 90 31
a)

Variables not in the Equation

Figure 1. Proportions of learning styles determined Score df Sig.

CE .229 1 .632
Sidebars were basically placeholders for DLS controls
(calendar, content browsing, and multimedia download). Variabl RO .610 1 .435
Two different sidebar positions were examined: one with Step
es AE 1.266 1 .260
a single sidebar placed left, and another one with two 1
sidebars (left and right). Right-sided sidebar only was not Gender 1.275 1 .259
used.
Overall Statistics 2.074 4 .722
Subjects, provided with simple answer sheet, with
instruction: “Please encircle number that matches GUI b)
you would like to have as a new interface in your DLS? “, by male students to account for the significant difference
and having a list of numbers (1-12), were asked only to in colour distribution.
encircle a GUI number that matched a GUI they found to Table 5 summarizes relationship between learning
be the most suitable for them. Respondents were also styles detected and interface preferences for the students.
having the opportunity to encircle number 13 which Chi-square test did not find any significant differences in
indicated „no preference“. distribution of learning styles detected in respect to
Chi-square test was used to determine if there was any interface styles chosen (p=0.359, with 44 degrees of
differences in learning styles with respect to gender, but freedom).
no significant difference was found (p=0.602, with 4 Binary logistic test was applied in order to determine
degrees of freedom). Also, chi-square test do not indicate correlation between learning style scores (AC, CE, AE,
any significant differences in GUI preference by gender RO), students gender and having preference towards
distribution (p=0.188, 11 degrees of freedom). interface. Results are indicating that AC score influences
The next step in the experiment is to determine gender the strength of preference towards GUI choice (Table 4).
distribution of interface colour choices. Chi-square test
supports the conclusion that interface colour distribution IV. DISCUSSION
was not random (p=0.025, with 3 degrees of freedom). It Not many research reports were available at the time of
is the blue interface colour that is predominantly chosen our work. We are concentrating our discussion on three
journal articles reporting results on experiments designed
TABLE III. to determine some of features on relationships between
GUI SEQUENCE CODE GUI preferences and learning styles.
GUI sequence code Colour Sidebars Width In [8] authors argue that different cognitive styles are
1 Red One Normal correlated to content organization, search result
2 Red One Wide
presentation and navigation structure of a web directory.
Whilst web directory was not the environment of our
3 Red Two Normal
research, and different instruments were used to classify
4 Red Two Wide individual learners, it is concluded that with respect to
5 Blue One Normal GUI-learning styles correlation, studies are not directly
6 Blue One Wide comparable, but we believe that it makes sense to compare
some of results. The study of Magoulas et al. employed
7 Blue Two Normal
Cognitive Styles Analysis for learners’ classification, and
8 Blue Two Wide presented four different types of interface design.
9 Grey One Normal Cognitive Styles Analysis recognizes field-dependent
10 Grey One Wide (FD) and field-independent (FI) learners, where it is
11 Grey Two Normal reported that field-dependent learners are more influenced
by external structure and format of the content presented
12 Grey Two Wide
within a web-interface. Field-independent learners are
 TABLE V.
INTERFACE PREFERENCE AND LEARNING STYLE DETECTED

Learning style Interface Total

No
3 1 4 2 7 5 8 6 9 12 10
prefer.
Converger
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 3
Diverger
0 3 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 9
Accomodator
0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Assimilator
0 0 0 5 0 3 2 3 1 0 3 5 22
Borderline or undefined
1 2 3 1 1 3 2 1 0 0 0 1 15
Total
1 5 4 8 1 7 6 7 1 1 4 6 51

however less influenced in aforementioned context.
Authors are reporting that differences between field-
dependent 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 (Kolb’s Learning Styles Inventory was used) exhibit
different navigational needs. Research was focused on the
processing continuum of Kolb’s 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 Liegle’s and Janicki’s 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 learner’s
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 learner’s 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 Kolb’s 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 learner’s
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.
REFERENCES
[1] Chen S, Macredie R, (2002), “Cognitive styles and hypermedia
navigation: development of learning model”. Journal of the
American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53, 1,
3–15.
[2] Moore K, Aspden L, (2004), “Coping adapting, evolving: the
student experience of e-learning”. Update, 3, 4, 22–24.
[3] Imel S, (2002), “E-learning—trends and issues alert”. (Report
No-40). Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and
Improvement.
[4] Gilbert J, Morton S, Rowley J, (2007), “E-Learning: The student
experience”, British Journal of Educational Technology, Vol 38,
No 4, pp. 560–573
[5] Paechter M, Maier B, Macher D, (2010), “Students’ expectations
of, and experiences in e-learning: Their relation to learning
achievements and course satisfaction”, Computers & Education,
54, 222–229
[6] M. Huber, K. Shay (2005), “Real world lessons for making GUI
design decisions that impact e-Learning”, The eLearning
Instructional Design Conference.
[7] Liaw S. S, Huang H. M, (2007), “Developing a Collaborative e-
learning System Based on Users’ Perceptions”. Lecture Notes in
Computer Science, 4402, 751–759.
[8] Magoulas, G. D., Chen, S. Y., and Dimakopoulos, D. (2004), “A
Personalised Interface for Web Directories based on Cognitive
Styles”. Proceedings of the 8th ERCIM UI4ALL Workshop
[9] Sadler-Smith E, (1996), “Learning Styles and instructional
Design”, Innovations in Education and Training International, 33,
pp. 185-193
[10] Ford N, Chen S, (2000), “Individual differences, hypermedia
navigation and learning: an empirical study”. Journal of
Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 9, 281–312.
[11] E. Kanninen, (2009), “Learning Styles and E-Learning”, Master of
Science Thesis, Tampere University Of Technology
[12] Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E. & Ecclestone, K., (2004),
“Learning styles and pedagogy in post - 16 learning”, A
systematic and critical review. Learning and skills research center
[13] Honey P, Mumford A, (1986), “Using your learning styles”.
Maidenhead, Berkshire: Honey Publications.
[14] Jens O. Liegle, Thomas N. Janicki (2006), “The effect of learning
styles on the navigation needs of Web-based learners Computers
in Human Behavior”, Volume 22, Issue 5, Pages 885-898
[15] Charat N. Khattapan, Mark Zaidel, (2010), “Interfaces and
Templates in Computer-Assisted learning: Students’ Assessments
and Preferences”, International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(14):
ISSN: 1944-6934