An innovative approach to involve students with learning disabilities in intelligent learning systems

Abstract

Innovations in healthcare education have fostered the development of assistive technologies which have contributed to making the learning environment and information more accessible to learners with learning difficulties. Especially, Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) have proven the benefits of personalized learning. One of the distinctive features of the intelligent system is its Learner Model (LM). In this paper, we propose a LM that takes into consideration individual differences and tends to adapt system parameters for learners with Specific Learning Disabilities (SLDs) before the session begins. The purpose of this research is the development of conceptual bases and a constructional approach of a cognitive LM founded on differentiation. However, developing ITS requires many resources and information about learners as well as it demands a long time to build. To facilitate the design process, we propose a LM, called UPCLEE that takes into account several dimensions of learner’s profile. This research demonstrates how the proposed model’s levels are taken into account in the design of ITS and how it can be used to provide personalization in computer-based educational systems. In this study, we collected observations, interviews, and surveys and we used a grounded theory approach to develop our LM, then we conducted a user study with 12 students (4 with SLDs) to validate our proposed model.