Using Technology to Address Individual Differences in Learning

Abstract

This chapter addresses an important educational problem: the need to capitalize on the affordances of twenty-first-century technology and emerging assessment methods to design learning environments that are sensitive to learners’ individual differences in motivation, affect, and cognition. To help address this problem, we review relevant research on individual differences in learning relative to (a) processes that fluctuate during learning and can be influenced by just-in-time instructional manipulations (e.g., cognitive load, confusion, engagement) and (b) states that remain relatively stable but may influence affective, motivational, and cognitive processing (e.g., domain knowledge, visuospatial abilities, working memory capacity). Discussion of recent empirical work on adaptive learning technologies provides examples of design solutions to account for state and process differences among learners. We conclude the chapter with a review of the Universal Design for Learning framework and promising directions for research and design focusing on individual differences in learning.