Bayesian Modeling in an Adaptive On-Line Questionnaire for Education and Educational Research

Bayesian modeling can be used for providing adaptation in an on-line questionnaire. In our research, adaptation means selecting the questions presented to the user in such a way that the total amount of answers required for profiling the user is minimized. In the article, we present the motivation to use Bayesian modeling as a basis for the adaptation and introduce our adaptive on-line questionnaire EDUFORM which employs these modeling principles. Preliminary empirical study of EDUFORM proved 3 to 17 minutes (35 to 64 percent) time saving and 9 to 32 propositions (36 to 80 percent) less to answer per questionnaire. Since EDUFORM is an open system in the sense that the content is not fixed, we discuss a range of possible uses of EDUFORM, including learner self-evaluation and testing by quizzes to provide assessment information for teachers.