Learning Grammar with Adaptive Hypertexts: Reading or Searching?

Using adaptive hypertext as a learning tool, the present study addresses the question of the effects of different processing goals, especially the goal of general reading a hypertext as opposed to the goal of searching for specific information, on learning content and skills at English grammar. Twenty students with German as mother tongue processed the present continuous chapter of the Chemnitz InternetGrammar. It has been shown that readers answer a higher amount of questions about details and, more importantly, they answer them in more detail than searchers. Nevertheless, searchers tend to produce more elaborated answers to complex questions than readers. Both groups performed better on skill tests after the session, showing no effect of the performed task. Based on this experimental evidence, the requirements on adaptive learning tools are discussed.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Institut für Psychologie, Technische Universität Chemnitz, Allgemeine und Arbeitspsychologie, D-09107, Chemnitz, Germany

   Angela Brunstein, Jacqueline Waniek, Anja Naumann & Josef F. Krems

Editors and Affiliations

1. School of Information Sciences Department of Information Science and Telecommunications, University of Pittsburgh, 135 North Bellefield Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA

   Peter Brusilovsky

2. Department of Computer Science, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, Einhoven, The Netherlands

   Paul De Bra

3. Escuela Tecnica Superior de Ingenieros en Informatica Departamento de Lenguajes y Ciencias de la Computacion, Universidad de Málaga, Boulevard Luis Pasteur, 35, Málaga, Spain

   Ricardo Conejo

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