Dynamic learning patterns: temporal characteristics demonstrated by the learner

This article sought to identify learner-demonstrated patterns when undergraduate students were learning to use a computer-based presentation program in a multimedia learning environment without time constraints. Using analysis of patterns in time (APT), a methodology that can code event changes over time, the frequencies and the amounts of time of the five learning patterns were calculated. The data derived from the APT scores indicated two major findings: (a) the amount of time used by the participants ranged from 20 to 87 minutes. The amount of time spent did not predict mastery of the posttest. (b) Following through error corrections, confirming actions, and trying new steps, were the patterns that did appear to predict mastery, and hand on mouse and keeping up step-by-step with the video instruction were indicators of learners' task engagement. The findings suggested that it is important to design flexible instruction to facilitate repeated, persistent, and successful practice to achieve mastery in a self -paced, computer-based learning environment, regardless of the amount of time spent. This study sought to investigate the existence of any significant temporal patterns of learner-demonstrated sequencing as learning styles that are related to the mastery of learning a procedural computer-based multimedia task. The impact of how different learning styles affect human learning has concerned educational researchers for decades (Bruner, 1966; Gagne, 1967; Kolb, 1984; Wang & Walberg, 1985; Tobias, 1981, 1987). According to Cronbach and Snow (1977), learning style can be used to predict what kind of instructional methods or strategies would be most effective for a given individual and learning task. Such attempts to discover the predictors for content mastery were typified in Aptitude Treatment Interaction (ATI) research. In ATI studies, aptitude was defined as any learner characteristic related to instructional outcome, and treatment was defined as any variation in instruction to the learner (Cronbach & Snow, 1969). However, research to date on this problem has not identified many robust relation ships between learning style and instructional method that are needed to generalize the assignment of instruction to different learners (Snow, 1989). Could this lack of robustness be caused by overlooking the means in favor of the ends of learning? Or perhaps the notion of aptitude needs to be defined differently when the means of learning (or learning process) is considered as a critical component in a learning experience. Frick (1990) indicated that one of the fundamental problems of ATI is that the linear model approach (LMA) employed by ATI cannot explicitly demonstrate the different means of learning because the LMA was designed to estimate parameters of mathematical models and is not adequate in dealing with occurrences and relative frequency of temporal events. LMA is best for explaining the relation between two or more independently measured variables, but it cannot measure the frequency or duration of occurrences of a temporal path (Frick, 1983). This observation directly implies that there is a need for a methodology other than LMA when the temporal patterns in a learning process are investigated, especially with a concurrent attempt to examine aptitude in a different way. Learning takes time. Learners take different amounts of time to perceive information to acquire knowledge. Knowledge is actively constructed through temporal sequencing of meaningful interactions between the individual and the learning context (Dewey, 1916; Piaget, 1973; Bruner, 1973; von Glasersfeld, 1991; Frick 1997). But how can we move the learning-styles research away from the instruction-centered "how one should learn" to the learner-centered "how one does learn?" To make instructional systems more adaptive, researchers need to put more emphasis on learner-demonstrated learning styles, where the relationships between the sequencing, time duration, and nature of the media should be carefully examined. …