A Summary Analysis Of Engineering Students' Interactions With An Online Learning Object In The Context Of Their Learning Styles

This is last in a series of three papers reporting on the results of a research project looking into differences in interactions of engineering students with a learning object. The object in question was a set of interactive online tutorials in introductory Process Control. The research project investigated the effectiveness of this learning tool and identified behavior patterns of engineering students with different learning styles that may affect their learning. The first paper in the series described a collaborative effort involved in developing the award-winning set of online tutorials. The second paper focused on the quantitative analysis of the volunteers’ results, including distributions of learning styles, preand post-test scores, and the breakdown of learning gains according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. This concluding paper focuses on the analysis of individual sessions where screen activity was videotaped and the volunteers commented aloud on their thought processes and choices as they navigated their way through the tutorials.