Personalization

Brief statement of principle

Personalization is a process by which features of an instructional component are designed to match up with students' personal interests, experiences, or typical patterns of language use in order to increase robust learning through increased motivation.

Description of principle

Instructional tasks are often presented in ways that do not connect with the experiences and interests of individual students. Instructional programs, and specific tasks in those programs, are typically developed to work with large groups of students. Instruction can be provided on and individual bases according to domain factors such as connections to particular knowledge components, but differentiation with respect to motivational factors is less common.

Personalization is a process by which features of an instructional component are designed to match up with students' personal interests, experiences, or typical patterns of language use in order to increase robust learning through increased motivation.

Trade-offs must be considered because personalization may alter instruction in such a way that interferes with other principles, such as by reducing the amount of practice or distracting the student with interesting but irrelevant material.

Operational definition

Recent work has considered at least the following two forms of personalization:

sense similar to Clark & Mayer, 2003

Presenting language (text or speech) to the student using first- and second-person pronouns, as well as polite and informal language.

sense similar to Cordova & Lepper, 1996

Tailoring instructional content to match the learner's personal interests or preferences.

References

Cordova, D. I. & Lepper, M. R. (1996). Intrinsic Motivation and the Process of Learning: Beneficial Effects of Contextualization, Personalization, and Choice. Journal of Educational Psychology. Vol. 88,l No. 4, 715-730.

Clark, R. C. and Mayer, R. E. (2003). e-Learning and the Science of Instruction. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.