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Article Excerpt
From an instructional perspective, it is conceivable
that employing an appropriate hypertext architecture should have the advantage of facilitating learning by representing logically the interrelationships between the different pieces of information contained within the hypertext. Furthermore, there would appear to be a sound theoretical rationale for suggesting that the degree to which hypertext-based instructional systems facilitate learning will be contingent on an individual's cognitive style. This study aims to investigate whether different hypertext architectures can be matched to an individual's cognitive style to facilitate learning. Three hypertext architectures, linear, hierarchical, and relational were employed, and cognitive style was assessed using the Cognitive Styles Analysis (Riding, 1991). The findings revealed that for certain hypertext architectures learning may be facilitated when the architecture is matched to the cognitive style of the user. The results have implications for the design of web-based learning systems.
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Jl. of Interactive Learning Research (2003) 14(4), 425-438
The implementation of web-based learning in higher education over the last few years makes it necessary to properly evaluate such initiatives, principally because they represent a departure from traditional methods in education. One of the fundamental features of web-based learning systems is the use of hypertext. Accordingly, a useful starting point for investigation is an analysis of the relative benefits of using hypertext in education.
Theoretically, the nonlinear structure of hypertext should allow a degree of flexibility in the way in which educational information can be presented in comparison to ordinary text, and this would therefore be beneficial in terms of illustrating to the learner the interrelationships between the various units of information in the hypertext. Such a system could theoretically facilitate more efficient deep learning (Marton, Hounsell, & Entwistle, 1984). However, Forsyth (1996) suggested that web sites offering instruction are no more than electronic textbooks, suggesting that learning in this way is a passive experience.
It is conceivable that the debate regarding the relative benefits of using hypertext for instruction may be settled in part through an investigation of individual differences in learner characteristics, that is investigating whether particular categories of individuals engage differently with hypertext. One category of individual differences, which has been adopted with great profit within the educational domain, is cognitive style, which is characterised essentially by variations in the ways in which individuals process information. Indeed several studies have investigated such differences employing the cognitive style type field dependence-independence and relating this to the manner with which individuals engage with hypertext (Korthauer & Koubek, 1994; Lin & Davidson-Shivers, 1996). However, further analysis of the style type field dependence-independence have found it to be related to general intelligence (Satterly, 1976; McKenna, 1984) and therefore it is questionable whether it meets the criteria of being a valid measure of cognitive style.
Riding (1991) advocated that the style constructs wholist-analytic and verbaliser-imager fulfil the criteria of being valid measures of cognitive style, being independent of personality, separate from intelligence and related to learning performance and learning preference. Accordingly, these cognitive style labels possibly represent more useful classifications of individual differences in information processing than the style construct field dependence-independence.
Wholist-Analytic Style and Hypertext
The wholist-analytic cognitive style can be operationalised as the tendency for individuals to process information either as an integrated whole or in discrete parts of that whole. In practical terms, analytics are able to apprehend ideas or concepts in parts, but have difficulty integrating such ideas into complete wholes. However, wholists are able to view ideas as complete wholes, but are unable to separate these ideas into discrete parts (see Figure 1).
Whalley (1993) suggested that hypertext versions of ordinary text may be difficult to understand because of the lack of a connecting narrative between the pages. Put another way, hypertext has the consequence of fragmenting the text into several smaller units, which reduces the overall meaning. Such a fragmentation of the meaning of the text would exacerbate an analytic individual's tendency to see information in parts, which may ultimately debilitate their learning performance. Indeed, Riding and Grimley (1999), noted that analytics did not learn as well as wholists from using a multimedia presentation of information. This result was explained by the...
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