Individual Learner Differences In Web-based Learning Environments: From Cognitive, Affective and Social-cultural Perspectives
INTRODUCTION
Web-based learning has become an increasingly important aspect of higher education as it meets the needs of an expanding pool of nontraditional students who find education necessary for jobs in today’s information age, and provides a convenient, flexible and manageable ways to the learning. Through various approaches to learning and thinking, educators and researchers are now actively engaged in attempting to understand and identify how people learn online and how this learning could be enhanced by incorporating new ideas and currently available technological tools into the instruction. Although neuroscience has provided us with an increasingly rich and accurate descriptive theory of learning within the brain, we still need theories and models of how to maximize the efficiency and capacity of human learning, especially in today’s popular learning: online learning in which the learner usually works autonomously and independently of others. In this case, the consideration of learner orientations and adaptation of the environment to the learners` needs and preferences become vital in the process of designing online instructions.
