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Article history:
Available online 7 September 2013
Keywords:
Activity theory
Adaptive e-learning systems
Proactive student model
Anticipation principle
Teachinglearning experience
a b s t r a c t
We apply activity theory (AT) to design adaptive e-learning systems (AeLS). AT is a framework to study
humans behavior at learning; whereas, AeLS enhance students apprenticeship by the personalization of
teachinglearning experiences. AeLS depict users traits and predicts learning outcomes. The approach
was successfully tested: Experimental group took lectures chosen by the anticipation AT principle; whilst,
control group received randomly selected lectures. Learning achieved by experimental group reveals a
correlation quite signicant and high positive; but, for control group the correlation it is not signicant
and medium positive. We conclude: AT is a useful framework to design AeLS and provide student-centered education.
2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction
In this work, we take into account the activity theory (AT) to
shape a framework oriented to develop adaptive e-learning systems (AeLS). The purpose of our framework is to enhance the
apprenticeship for users of such systems. A relevant contribution
of the approach is the representation of the AT principle of anticipation as a proactive student model (PSM). This kind of model enables AeLS to intelligently deliver lectures that offer the highest
learning achievement. Thus, the PSM makes fuzzy-causal inferences to anticipate the effect produced by candidate lecture
options to teach a given concept and choose the most promising.
As regards the AT, it was formulated during the 1920s by several psychologists and has been evolving since then. The concep-
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and accessibility in e-learning (Seale, 2007). All of those works apply AT to deal with a given functionality of e-learning systems, but
none pursue to model the student and anticipate his learning
achievements. Therefore, our work focuses on such a target by
means of the design, deployment, and exploitation of a PSM, which
represents fuzzy knowledge and infers fuzzy-causal reasoning.
The e-learning systems are the result of the evolution of the
earliest computer-assisted educational systems built during the
60s. Since then, several approaches have been designed to implement specic educational paradigms, such as: intelligent tutoring
systems, computer-supported collaborative learning, learning
management systems, web-based educational systems, and
hypermedia systems. Nowadays, one of the current trends corresponds to AeLS. They are able to adapt themselves in an intelligent way to satisfy the particular needs of every user. The
architecture of AeLS includes learning and reasoning engines to
respectively acquire and infer knowledge about the student.
Moreover, AeLS elicit, represent, and use such knowledge to
dynamically adapt functionalities that satisfy personal requirements of the student such as: sequencing of teachinglearning
experiences, content delivery, usersystem interface, navigation
mechanism, criteria for assessment, and evaluation indices
(Pea-Ayala, 2012).
With the aim of demonstrating how AT is useful to develop
AeLS, the paper is organized as follows: A method for designing
AeLS is outlined in Section 2 through the description of AT principles, architectures, and perspectives. In Section 3, we explain how
to build a prototype of AeLS based on our framework. Furthermore,
our prototype is exploited in a case study, where we measure the
impact that the anticipation AT principle, deployed as a PSM, exerts on students learning. In Section 4, the results are unveiled
as statistical highlights, and a discussion of the outcomes is
pointed out. Finally in the Conclusions Section, several assertions
are made as consequence of the case study, and further work to
be fullled is anticipated.
2. Method: A framework for applying activity theory to adaptive
elearning systems
The AT offers a philosophical framework for modeling different
forms of human praxis. One relevant practice is the education provided to students by means of e-learning systems. This kind of service is also a target study for the AT. Hence, we present a
framework for using AT to design AeLS through the exposition of
the AT principles, architectures, and perspectives.
2.1. Activity theory principles
AT consists of a set of principles devoted to shape a general conceptual activity. They can be used as a foundation for more specic
theories (Engestrm & Glaveanu, 2012). Such principles are the
following:
Object-orientedness represents something that objectively exists
and is fullled by an activity.
Hierarchical structure guides the interaction between individuals and the world through a functional hierarchy composed of
three levels as follows:
Activity is a collective system driven by an object and a
motive that a subject pursues. An activity is performed
through a set of actions to accomplish an object.
Actions are conscious, driven by goals and are carried out by
a series of operations.
Operations are routine tasks whose activation depends on
the conditions of the action.
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Fig. 2. Basic activity architecture; where, Ac, a, o, and c respectively correspond to activity, action, operation, and condition.
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The organizational activity system concerns the physical, nancial, and human resources of the institution. Its desired outcome is
the satisfaction of requirements regarding educational, social, economical, and physical demands. The pedagogical activity system
represents the substantive function of an educational environment.
Its outcome reveals the apprenticeship gained by students. The
technological activity system pursues the design and delivery of
efcient information technology for organizational and pedagogical systems. Its outcome is the level of satisfaction demanded by
students, as well as the services provided by the e-learning system.
3. Result: Application of the AT to design adaptive e-learning
systems
This section is devoted to explain how the AT is used to design
AeLS. The main assumption is: to consider e-learning as an activity
at network level. So, this approach takes into account the three earlier stated perspectives to tailor AeLS. Thus, in the rst three subsections the organizational, pedagogical, and technological
activity systems are characterized at collective level to identify
their respective elements and outcomes. In addition, the consequent architecture at network level is stated in the fourth subsection in order to shape a holistic model of the study target. In the
last subsection, we demonstrate how the prior introduced AT principles are applied by the instantiation of tools and rules that correspond to the pedagogical and technological perspectives.
3.1. Adaptive e-learning systems from the organizational perspective
An AeLS is considered as an organizational activity system
when the subject is the whole school. The activity corresponds to
planning, decision making, and investment in e-learning projects
oriented to satisfy educational demands. Therefore, the object represents the provision of distance and adaptive educational services
through AeLS. The outcome is the capacity to satisfy current and
further requirements of education claimed by the society. Tools
correspond to human, economical, and material resources. Laws,
policies, and regulations concerned with educational services identify rules to be followed. Community is composed of organizations
principal, members of the board, investors, managers, employees,
teachers, tutors, technical staff, and students. Division of labor reveals the role to be fullled by each member of the community.
Some of these elements are depicted in Fig. 7.
3.2. A pedagogical perspective for an adaptive e-learning system
In order to represent an AeLS from the pedagogical perspective,
the subject corresponds to the pedagogical logistics held and
applied by the institution. The activity pursues the design, implementation, and delivery of adaptive webbased educational services that facilitate and stimulate the acquisition of domain
knowledge (DK) by students at any time and place. Thus, the object
is the development of a pedagogical environment that is able to
provide personalized education to students by means of an AeLS.
As a consequence, the outcome is the apprenticeship accomplished
by students through their interaction with the AeLS. Tools are the
curriculum, DK content repositories, PSM, assessment records,
and evaluation instruments. Rules are characterized by cognitive
theories, teaching strategies, learning styles, pedagogical models,
sequencing strategies, evaluation criteria, assessment policies, regulations, and laws. Community is represented by the principal, academic managers, pedagogues, teachers, tutors, librarians, advisors,
and students. Division of labor depicts functions, attributes, and
responsibilities carried out by members of the community. A
graphical view of the pedagogical perspective is drawn in Fig. 8.
3.3. Adaptive e-learning system analyzed as a technological system
The technical staff devoted to build, exploit, and maintain the
AeLS play the role of the subject for the technological activity system. The activity is responsible for the development, management,
user-support, and maintenance of the AeLS. Thereby, the object
represents technical facilities that take into account current and future educational demands to be satised by AeLS. As result, the
outcome is the educational services provided and the degree of students satisfaction. The web-based system, learning objects, userinterfaces, accessories, hardware, communication platform, software licenses, procedures, and techniques are tools that ensure
costs, security, reliability, and scalability of AeLS. Rules consist of
architectures, models, methods, standards, techniques, procedures,
and documents that offer the guidelines to design, develop, operate, and maintain Ae-LS. Community is the technical staff make
up of the project leader, web master, database administrator, analysts, designers, programmers, content authors, graphic designers,
communication specialists, and technical support team. Division of
labor is given according to the main duties of the activity, technical
specialties, and the role to be performed by the members of the
community. Fig. 9 depicts an illustration of the technological
perspective.
3.4. Architecture of the activity at network level for adaptive elearning systems
Once the AeLS have been dened and characterized from three
perspectives (e.g., organizational, pedagogical, and technological),
the architecture of activity at network level is outlined in this subsection. Such architecture is a systematic perspective of the three
already described activity systems. Moreover, it offers a holistic
viewpoint of the elements that make up each perspective, the
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tool for measuring the apprenticeship of key concepts is the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (TEO) proposed by Bloom (Su & Osisek, 2011). TEO denes a scale of six of levels to measure the
degree of mastery held by an individual for a key concept. The scale
is organized in ascending levels of dominion, such as: (1) remembering; (2) understanding; (3) applying; (4) analyzing; (5) evaluating; (6) creating. However, we added level number 0 to reveal
ignorance.
Another pedagogical rule constrains to ask just one question to
assess if the student has dominated a specic TEO level. Hence, a
sequence of six question cues is made to the student according
to the ascending hierarchy of TEO. The rst question determines
if the student masters the remembering level when the individual
rightly answers a question cue like: list, dene, show, name,
who, when. . . The second question assigns the understanding tier
whether the student is able to describe, distinguish, interpret, contrast, associate. . . The applying value is reached when the person
illustrates, applies, classies. . . Whether the student also explains,
compares, separates. . ., the analyzing level is fullled. The evaluating tier is accomplished when the student generalizes, modies,
substitutes. . . The maximum level, creating, is given to the student
when she tests, decides, judges. . .
TEO is implemented as a technological tool devoted to estimate
students background and acquired DK about key concepts. Such a
tool is deployed as the evaluator module of an AeLS to make inquiries about a specic key concept to the student. Concerning the
technological rule, it claims: just one lecture is granted to the student for learning a key concept.
3.5.2. Outcome
As a result of the object-orientedness principle, the outcome is
the DK acquired about a given educational topic by users of AeLS.
The pedagogical tool is the process oriented to evaluate the students answers expressed in natural language. A pedagogical rule
claims: The maximum TEO level of mastery held student about a
Fig. 10. Architecture of activity at network level for adaptive e-learning systems.
specic key concept reveals she also successfully satised all the
previous TEO levels (e.g., when a student reached the applying level
for a particular key concept, it means she satised remembering
and understanding levels as well).
The technological tool is a scoring function devoted to identify
the highest TEO level that the student achieves for each key concept. A technological rule validates the consistency of the highest
TEO level. For instance, when the student is unable to answer the
rst question (related to remembering) the level number 0 (ignorance) is assigned as the maximum TEO level for the inquired key
concept. However, when the highest TEO level is 4 (analyzing), it
means that the student rightly answered questions number 1 to
4, but failed to respond to question number 5 that is related to
evaluating. In consequence, the cue 6, creating, is not demanded
of the student.
3.5.3. Mediation
The principle of mediation concerns the artifact that student
uses to acquire DK about an educational topic. The pedagogical tool
is the student-centered paradigm that pursues to deliver personalized education through Internet. The technological tool is an AeLS.
This sort of computer-based educational system intelligently and
automatically adapts teachinglearning experiences according to
the students particular characteristics (e.g., learning preferences,
habits, weakness, personality, cognitive skills. . .). Such a kind of
experience represents a lecture about a key concept that is provided through the web. During a lecture, the artifact delivers
content and provides exercises about a key concept to the student
teaching . As result of such stimuli, the student acquires DK and
develops some cognitive skills learning.
The pedagogical rules entail the following hypothesis: the students apprenticeship is successfully stimulated when the delivered lecture matches his prole. The technological rule is a
sequencing criterion that demands the evaluation of the candidate
lectures, the selection of the most protable lectures option, and
the delivery of just one lecture to teach a key concept.
3.5.4. Hierarchical structure
The hierarchical structure is the set of logistics, teachinglearning experiences scripts, and content authored to provide an educational topic. The pedagogical tool is the adaptation. This paradigm
tailors teachinglearning experiences according to particular students attributes. The technological tool is the Content Model, which
is part of the Content Aggregation Model. In turn, the last model is
one item of the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)
proposed by Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL, 2009). The Content Model describes lecture facilities to guide the delivery and
development of teachinglearning experiences. Such facilities
identify resources, trigger duties, apply controls, and guide
behaviors.
The pedagogical rule claims: A lecture is an educational event,
where a series of stimuli is provided to the student in order she acquires DK of a key concept. The technological rule is the SCORM
Metadata devoted to provide standard information and meaning
of the lecture content represented in the Content Model (ADL,
2009).
3.5.5. Activity
Activity, as the root of the hierarchical structure AT principle, is
the whole process fullled by an AeLS and a student to respectively
teach (object) and learn (motive) an educational topic. The pedagogical tool is the DK of a given educational topic to be taught
and learned. The technological tool is the SCORM Content Organization (ADL, 2009). This tool is depicted as a workow that guides the
delivery of the most promising lecture option to teach a key
concept.
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140
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Table 1
Descriptive statistics estimated for the control and the experimental groups during the pre- and post-measures, and their difference.
Measures
Count
Sum
Mean
Minimum
Maximum
Range
Median
Mode
N for the mode
Standard deviation
Variance
SE of the mean
Skewness
Kurtosis
Control group
Experimental group
Pre-measure
Post-measure
Difference
Pre-measure
Post-measure
Difference
9
42
4.67
1
16
15
3
3
3
4.4441
19.75
1.48
2.5147
6.93
9
174
19.33
7
32
25
20
0
9.7468
95.00
3.25
0.1529
1.86
9
132
14.67
5
27
22
15
9
2
8.17
66.75
2.72
0.4413
1.18
9
38
4.22
2
11
9
3
3
3
2.8186
7.9444
0.94
2.078
4.66
9
198
22.00
11
40
29
15
13
2
11.5217
132.75
3.84
0.783
1.15
9
160
17.78
8
34
26
13
11
2
9.3244
86.94
3.11
0.7112
1.01
Table 2
Reliability based on the Cronbachs alpha to measure the students knowledge.
Stage
Pre-measure
Group coefcient
Control
Experimental
Post-measure
Control and experimental
Control
Experimental
Cronbachs alpha
0.6725
0.7876
0.4202
0.8424
0.8473
0.8484
Table 3
Validity based on the factor analysis to pre-measure the students knowledge.
Key concept
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
Factor 4
Factor 5
Factor 6
5
8
7
10
2
4
6
1
0.969
0.955
0.773
0.243
0.190
0.203
0.329
0.133
0.052
0.84
0.024
0.920
0.821
0.132
0.065
0.280
0.077
0.096
0.428
0.040
0.178
0.953
0.065
0.096
0.156
0.224
0.212
0.089
0.255
0.077
0.938
0.026
0.118
0.111
0.049
0.184
0.233
0.103
0.027
0.945
0.014
0.014
0.333
0.179
0.322
0.007
0.037
0.016
Variance
% Variance
2.7113
33.9
1.6315
20.4
1.1526
14.4
1.0797
13.5
1.0212
12.8
method. It estimates the consistency of six types of questions oriented to measure the students DK about ten key concepts. The
coefcient achieved during the pre-measure and post-measure
for the union of comparative groups, the control group, and the
experimental group is given in Table 2. In this table, an acceptable
coefcient around 0.8 for each measure-group appears with just
one exception, the pre-measure of the experimental group.
4.4.4. Validity
Validity requirement is also tested for the second set of measures by means of the factor analysis method. It describes variability among observed variables in terms of fewer factors. Therefore, a
factor analysis is estimated for pre-measure and post-measure
stages in Tables 3 and 4 respectively. This process uses the principal component extraction method and the Varimax rotation type.
The tables rows reveal a sample of key concepts that represent
the students DK about the SRM. The rst column identies the
number of the key concept (e.g., 1 for hypothesis, 2 for law. . .). Columns two to seven depict six factors, such as: (1) students former
DK; (2) evaluation method; (3) concepts nature; (4) quiz requirement; (5) response time limit; (6) usersystem interaction. Tables
3 and 4 state in the last column the communalities between factors
and loads that rotated and classied factors exert upon key concepts. In both tables, it is possible to identify high values for key
0.2486
3.1
Communality
0.986
0.992
0.939
0.981
0.965
0.983
1.000
1.000
7.8449
98.1
concepts 1 and 6, medium values for key concepts 5 and 10, and
low values for key concepts 4 and 7.
4.5. Inferential hypothesis testing
In this section, the causal hypothesis dened in the development
AT principle is tested through the following inferential methods:
mean for the population, condence range, correlation, and linear
regression between previous and current knowledge. The results
produced by the testing methods are presented as follows.
4.5.1. Mean for the population
The method of mean for the population corresponds to the
hypothesis about populations mean. Hence, in Table 5, the probability that the samples mean is close to the mean of the sample
distribution is estimated with a signicance level (a) of 0.05 to produce 1.96 as Z score. Such a table shows the hypothetic mean,
which is computed from the average mean estimated for experimental and control groups as result of the pre-measure, post-measure, and difference.
The success criterion number 1 is met when: Z score for a sample mean 6 Z score for the signicance level a of 1.96. In Table 5, it
is possible to identify that each measure for every group satises
the criterion for the hypothesis about populations mean.
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Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3
Factor 4
Factor 5
Factor 6
0.902
0.808
0.638
0.568
0.291
0.093
0.071
0.134
0.162
0.397
0.159
0.284
0.526
0.032
0.895
0.761
0.043
0.203
0.021
0.235
0.088
0.011
0.319
0.085
0.155
0.450
0.966
0.089
0.130
0.212
0.032
0.265
0.301
0.453
0.121
0.125
0.073
0.890
0.317
0.060
0.087
0.172
0.220
0.532
0.001
0.005
0.092
0.272
0.894
0.011
0.183
0.285
0.004
0.308
0.074
0.282
0.125
0.081
0.026
0.835
1.8626
18.6
1.3461
13.5
1.2297
13.0
1.2492
12.5
1.0153
10.2
2.4950
24.9
Communality
0.888
0.914
0.925
0.914
0.929
0.886
0.969
0.941
0.943
0.959
9.2678
92.7
Table 5
Hypothesis about populations mean for control and experimental groups.
Group
Control
Pre-measure
Post-measure
Difference
Experimental
Pre-measure
Post-measure
Difference
Sample count
Sample mean
Sample standard deviation
Population hypothetic mean
Mean distribution sample standard deviation
Z score for sample mean
Success criterion 1
Condence interval
P value
Success criterion 2
9
4.67
4.4441
4.446
1.4817
0.151
p
9
19.33
9.7468
20.665
3.2490
0.411
p
9
14.67
8.17
16.225
2.7233
0.571
p
9
4.22
2.8186
4.446
0.9395
0.238
p
9
22.00
11.5217
20.665
3.8406
0.348
p
9
17.78
9.3244
16.225
3.1081
0.500
p
1.777.57
0.881
p
12.9625.70
0.682
p
9.3320.01
0.567
p
2.386.06
0.812
p
14.4729.53
0.728
p
11.6923.87
0.617
p
Table 6
Pearson correlation for pre and post-measures fullled by control and experimental
groups.
Group
Measures
Control
Pre-measurePostmeasure
Experimental
Pre-measurePostmeasure
r Pearsons coefcient
P value
Nature of the
correlation
Signicative of the
correlation
0.554
0.122
Positive and medium
0.828
0.0059
Positive and high
Non-signicative
(0.122 P 0.05)
Quite signicative
(0.0059 6 0.05)
Table 7
Linear regression of pre- and post-measures for control and experimental groups.
Group
Measures
Control
Pre-measure ? Postmeasure
Experimental
Pre-measure ? Postmeasure
8.67413
6.91462
30.7%
20.8%
68.5%
64.0%
P value
Source of variation
is
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5. Conclusions
Fig. 11. Liner regression between pre- and post-measures for control and experimental groups, in black and red lines respectively. (For interpretation of the
references to color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of
this article.)
4.6. Findings
The most relevant nding derived from the case study is: Lectures chosen according to the advice given by the PSM, which
implements the anticipation AT principle, reach a higher students
learning than the apprenticeship achieved through lectures selected without considering such a personalized support offered
by the AeLS.
This afrmation is grounded on the pre, post, and difference
measures given in Table 1. They demonstrate: Despite holding
the lowest previous DK (38 points); at the end, the experimental
group overcame and improved in such a way that it reached the
highest score (198 points). Hence, the accumulated apprenticeship
acquired by participants of the experimental group was higher
than the learning achieved by participants of the control group
(e.g., 160 versus 132 respectively).
Thus, the intercept value of the post-measure (Y) estimated for
the experimental group is smaller by almost half than the one estimated for the control team (e.g., 7.72 versus 13.7 respectively).
However, the slope of the linear regression equation for the experimental group is nearly three times greater that the one produced
by the control group (e.g., respectively 3.28 versus 1.22). Furthermore, the correlation produced for the experimental group is quite
signicant: 0.0059. In consequence, the nature of the correlation is
positive and high for the pre- and post-measures taken of the
experimental group.
Another relevant nding derived from the earlier arguments is:
The learning abilities held by members of the experimental group
were more stimulated than the cognitive capacities shown by subjects of the control team. This means that the pedagogical rule:
the students apprenticeship is successfully stimulated when the
delivered lecture matches their prole is reinforced according to
the collected empirical evidence.
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