Adaptive Education based on Learning Styles: Are Learning Style Instruments Precise Enough?

Investigating the efficiency of learning style instruments is significant because it is a widespread technique and it enriches the understanding of the challenges of integrating such instruments into adaptive education systems. The results showed that current learning style instruments depend only on the textual form of information to present items; this might be leading to a bias in the measurement of learning styles as the textual forms of information are more suitable for verbal students than for others. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the precision of learning style instruments and the challenges of integrating them into adaptive education systems. This research followed a quantitative research approach. First, a new learning style instrument was developed using different forms of information (Figures, Charts, and Equations). Then, the preferred learning style of fifty students was measured twice, initially, by using the newly developed instrument and subsequently by using a VARK instrument, the results of both were compared.