Conclusions and Discussion - Advances in Personalized Web-Based Education - page 115

Conclusions and Discussion

Applicability of the Novel Fuzzy Student Modeling Approach

The target of this topic was to present a survey of student modeling approaches and
fuzzy logic application and a novel approach that combines fuzzy logic techniques
for offering individualized instruction and personalized support in adaptive educa-
tional systems. The presented student modeling approach performs individualized
instruction, adapting the delivery of the knowledge domain to the individual learner's
learning needs and pace. The presented approach models either how learning pro-
gresses or how the student's knowledge can decrease. It automatically models the
learning or forgetting process of a student. In particular, the system keeps track of
cognitive state transitions of learners with respect to their progress or no-progress.
Thereby, it reveals if a student learns or not, if s/he forgets and reasons these states.
Therefore, the system allows each individual learner to complete the e-learning
course at her/his own pace, taking decisions about the concepts of the learning mate-
rial that have to be delivered to them, the concepts that need revision and the con-
cepts that are known and do not need further reading. In this way, the system helps
learners to save time and effort during the learning process.
The presented novel approach was fully implemented and evaluated. Particularly,
an original integrated environment for personalized e-training in programming and
the language 'C' was developed. This system was used by the students of a post-
graduate program in the field of Informatics in the University of Piraeus, Greece. The
evaluation was based on close-ended questionnaires and experimental research. The
results of the evaluation were very encouraging. They demonstrated that the system
models the student's cognitive state and adapts dynamically to her/his individual needs
by scheduling the sequence of lessons on the fly, allowing her/him to complete the
e-training course at her/his own pace and according to her/his ability. The encourag-
ing results motivate the implementation of the presented novel approach of tutoring
system that combines fuzzy techniques to educational environments of knowledge
domains other than computer programming.