Using adaptive learning technologies to personalize instruction to student interests: The impact of relevant contexts on performance and learning outcomes

“As Figure 1 summarizes, these interventions target motivational processes expected to influence critical educational outcomes, and take the learner’s phase of interest development into account.”

“…indicate a design choice that benefitted students ’ motivation (Bernacki & Walkington, 2018, date 1) and performance (Bernacki & Walkington, 2018; Walkington, 2013; Walkington & Bernacki, 2019, date 1, 2) such programs will often include multiple components in order to satisfy program…”

“Moreover, the number of individual applications generally increased, and the application domains became more diverse from the first to the third time periods.”

“Some recent studies on adaptive or personalized ICT programs, digital pen technologies, and blended learning show that such interventions can support differentiated instruction and have positive effects on student achievement (Walkington, 2013; Chen et al., 2016; Van Halem et al., 2017; Ghysels and Haelermans, 2018),…”

“Learner Needs and Interests – PL course design (Barr & Tagg, 1995; Bernacki & Walkington, 2018; Walkington, 2013; Watson & Watson, 2017) – Inclusion of all possible pathways/tracks within the course objectives and parameters (Barr & Tagg, 1995; Bernacki & Walkington, 2018; Walkington, 2013; Watson & Watson, 2017) – In…”

“Several studies have found that adapting instruction to student interests and providing personalized motivation, can enhance engagement and performance [148,149].”

“Tailoring content to student interests and experiences “grounds” abstract concepts and increases the speed and accuracy of problem-solving [200].”

“It could be defined as leveraging students’ interests through automatic adaptivity (e.g., Walkington, 2013), or learner-driven content creation (e.g., Garrett et al., this issue), or strengths-based learning (McCarthy & Liu, this issue).”

“Adaptive learning technologies, which tailor instruction to align with students’ personal interests, have demonstrated the potential to enhance performance and learning outcomes (Walkington, 2013).”

“…have been successfully adapted to, over and above prior knowledge, include metacognitive skills (Azevedo et al. 2009), current affect (D ’ Mello et al. 2012; Lehman et al. 2013), and motivation (Walkington 2013; for a comprehensive overview of different adaptations in ITS see Aleven et al. 2017).”

“These studies examined students’ learning behavior such as comparing student thinking styles with their behavior, using web log mining to capture learner behavior, examining learning styles in an adaptive game, comparing student characteristics and their learning paths, and classifying students based on learning style…”

“It can take a number of forms, such as individualized instruction materials (e.g., Høgheim & Reber, 2015; Walkington, 2013) or allowing students to choose among a range of instruction materials (e.g., Palmer, 2009; Patall, 2013).”

“Like direct communication, personalization tailors curricular activities to students’ background knowledge and interests, typically through instructional technologies that give students the opportunity to indicate which topics they find interesting and presumably relevant (Walkington, 2013).”

“…representing students' interests in class, for instance, with using rap lyrics (Hallman, 2009; Heron-Hruby et al. 2008; Polman, 2006), new media, or online technology (Hung, Lee, & Lim, 2012; Walsh, 2007) or by personalizing instruction to match students' interests all together (Walkington, 2013).”

“Indeed, Walkington (2013) noted that personalized learning experience provides more positive and robust learning outcomes.”

“impact the learning outcome of the student (Walkington, 2013)— tutoring systems that incorporate this can be categorized as personalized learning systems or personalized tutoring aids.”

“Contrast this with the following video game problem used in an intelligent tutoring system intervention reported in Walkington (2013): BYou work at a store that sells computers and electronics.”

“The majority of these studies were associated with positive findings among others in terms of academic outcome and engagement (e.g., Arroyo et al., 2014; Walkington, 2013).”

“…Vojak, & Kline, 2011; DiCerbo & Behrens, 2014; Mislevy, Almond, & Lukas, 2004; Quellmalz & Pellegrino, 2009); and adaptive, personalized or differentiated instruction which calibrates learning to individual needs (Conati & Kardan, 2013; Shute & Zapata-Rivera, 2012; Walkington, 2013; Wolf, 2010).”

“EdTech that adapt to the user in the course of learning draw on intelligent tutoring systems or adaptive learning technologies (Walkington, 2013) to automate the interaction between the learner and the digital content (Aleven et al. 2016).”

“In addition, using tasks set in real-world contexts may improve mathematics performance (Bottge & Hasselbring, 1993; Carraher, Carraher, & Schliemann, 1985) and engagement (Bae & Kokka, 2016), especially if the tasks are aligned with students’ interests (Walkington, 2013).”

“Results (Bernacki & Walkington, under review) replicated and extended the findings from Walkington (2013): Students receiving personalization reported higher interest, showed greater learning efficiency and had higher performance on paperbased classroom exams than the control group.”

“We also personalize the narrative in several ways, given personalized instruction and fantasy play can boost engagement and learning [6, 73].”

“Context personalization can significantly enhance learner motivation and engagement by allowing learners to bring their cultural identity to the learning environment, leading to better learning outcomes (Walkington, 2013; Walkington and Bernacki, 2018, 2019).”

“It is worth noting that some research has shown greater benefits of contextual information for students with lower math ability on harder problems (Walkington, 2013).”

“Students with specific knowledge gaps can use ChatGPT for targeted instruction and practice activities, similar to the effectiveness of AI-powered tutors found by (Corry & Carlson-Bancroft, 2014; Walkington, 2013).”

“For instance, a study involving ninth-grade Algebra I students demonstrated that personalized problems aligned with students’ interests in sports, music, and movies led to faster and more accurate problem-solving, particularly benefiting those struggling within the tutoring environment [44].”

“Many hope that this challenge will benefit from data-based technologies (eg, Walkington, 2013).”

“Related research in mathematics education has established the effectiveness of personalization in fostering students’ learning (Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Walkington, 2013; Walkington, Petrosino, & Sherman, 2013).”

“However, the result that familiar contexts or topics are associated with higher performance on algebra word problems, has been recently replicated in the context of online curricula (Walkington, 2013).”

“For example, Walkington (2013) proposed that the familiar contexts provided by context personalization can help in grounding abstract mathematical concepts for learners, making content more intelligible (see also Boaler, 1994).”

“Studies on context personalization are usually grounded in research in cognition, motivation, and emotion (see Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Walkington, 2013).”

“With adaptive learning systems, learners could take ownership of their learning experience [9] and accelerate future learning [10].”

“…generation method can generate MWPs tailored to each student’s background and interests, providing students with a personalized learning experience (Walkington, 2013) that often leads to better engagement and improved learning outcomes (Connor-Greene, 2000; Karpicke, 2012; Karpicke and Roediger,…”

“More importantly, course design in which instructional materials are adapted to fit with individual student interests has been found to improve learning outcomes in the acquisition of math skills (Walkington 2013).”

“Such is the objective of adaptive, personalized or differentiated instruction which calibrates learning to individuals (Walkington, 2013; Wolf, 2010).”

“Previous studies show that education technology that encourages a self-directed, interactive, and collaborative learning environment has positive effects on students’ academic outcomes (e.g., Barrow, Markman, and Rouse 2009; Walkington 2013).”

“Although reliable data are not available about the prevalence of ALTs, recent research suggests that these tools are commonly used in K-12 classrooms [1 – 5].”

“Some relevance interventions have focused on modifying course content so that it is more appealing, relevant to students, and applicable to the real world (see Harackiewicz, Smith, & Priniski, 2016; Walkington, 2013; Woolley, Rose, Orthner, Akos, & Jones-Sanpei, 2013).”

“Walkington [196] showed that an interest-based personalization intervention within an intelligent tutoring system for secondary mathematics improved learning outcomes for struggling students.”

“Key word strategies focus on surface features and ignore the deep structure of relationships within the question text (Sowder 1988; Walkington 2013; Parmar 1992) and are antagonistic to building the mathematical proficiency of conceptual understanding (National Research Council 2001).”

“Moreover, due to a limited number of studies that reported information on learners’ prior knowledge, we were only able to obtain the information from four studies (i.e., Awo-fala et al., 2011; Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Ku & Sullivan, 2000; Walkington, 2013).”

“More recently, a style of personalized learning called context personalization emphasizes the role of both cognitive and non-cognitive factors in fostering deeper learning (Walkington, 2013; Walkington & Bernacki, 2018).”

“In the field of mathematics, tailoring algebra-problems to learners’ situational interest increased learners’ interest and learning of algebra concepts (Bernacki and Walkington 2014; Walkington 2013).”

“This may include adding warmup tasks, formative assessments, or culturally relevant adaptations (Meidl & Meidl, 2011; Walkington, 2013).”

“Adaptive Learning (AL) is considered as the next stage of computer assisted training as AL systems have the ability to provide students with immediate assistance and resources specific to their learning needs, and relevant feedback [46].”

“Today’s students are used to customization as well as having interaction and control when searching for knowledge and information [1].”

“com EJTAS 2023 | Volume 1 | Number 4 726 allows instruction to be continuously tailored to build upon and respond sensitively to each learner’s existing mental models, misconceptions, and developmental level to scaffold the active assimilation and accommodation processes by which individuals construct new understandin…”

“Walkington (2013) illustrated that tailoring instruction to student interests not boosts motivation but also enhances performance emphasizing the importance of relevance in engaging students.”

“Personalization is an instructional approach that connects mathematics tasks to students’ out-of-school interests in topics such as sports, shopping, and video games (Walkington, 2013).”

“• Adapting instructional materials to students’ personal & peer interests (Walkington, 2013) • Embedding software and dynamics for peer assistance (Walker, Rummel, & Koedinger, 2011) • Examining how confidence affects performance in early algebra (Mazzocco, Murphy, Brown, Rinne, & Herold, 2013)”

“…has coincided with growing expectations for computers to deliver data-driven, real-time directives for education, such as personalized learning (Walkington, 2013) and assessment, added pressures from a global pandemic that disrupted standard, in-person learning, and a lack of oversight or…”

“According to Walkington (2013), contexts activate interest while helping ground abstract ideas and their prior knowledge within concrete real-life experiences.”

“A study by Walkington (2013) used a software programme that asked students about their interests (e.g. sport, music), and then incorporated these interests into algebra instructional material.”

“Research illustrating the benefits of using real-world contexts in textbooks has found that this practice increases student engagement (Alexander & Jetton, 1996), highlights the personal relevance of concepts to students (Walkington, 2013), and decreases mathematics anxiety (Martinez, 1987).”

“…developers can also consider options for development that keep a student engaged, such as allowing the student to select a different avatar or setting, since there is some prior research evidence to support the impact of allowing students to personalize their learning experience (Walkington, 2013).”

“…appreciated particularly because it generates a learning process that appears natural and intrinsic to the person, and therefore fits with new models of education that depart from person-centered, life-wide and connected learning approaches (e.g., Barron, 2006; Ito et al., 2018; Walkington, 2013).”

“In addition to personalization based on student knowledge state, it is useful to take into account also student interests and to present tasks that are contextualized with respect to these interests (Cordova and Lepper 1996; Walkington 2013).”