Coupling Cultural Context to a User Model of Adaptive E-Learning: Fundamentals, Approach and Experiment

Considering culture both in technology-enhanced learning and human computer interaction research is an important issue since culture has a strong impact on many cognitive and affective processes including those related to learning. Also, people with different cultural backgrounds develop alternative interpretations and strategies and do not value their environment in the same way, and this reflects on their interactions and satisfaction with learning technologies, especially e-learning systems (ELSs). Thus, adapting ELS to specific users, taking advantage of knowledge acquired about their cultural, technological, educational and personal characteristics is an essential feature in order to improve usability and flexibility of ELS. This paper presents the context-aware and culture-oriented aspects of an adaptability approach designed for ELSs and validated by an experiment conducted with a group of 65 students of three different countries to evaluate their satisfaction in the culture-oriented adaptation provided by the system. Based on the data of the participants, the results suggest that the culturally adapted interface has more participant satisfaction than the non-cultural one.

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