Cognitive Styles and Hybrid Mobile Systems

Abstract

Mobile learning, which has become widespread in educational settings, faces students with diverse background, in terms of knowledge, skills and needs. Two approaches, i.e., Customization and Personalization, can be applied to sort out diversity. However, these two approaches have different advantages and disadvantages. Thus, this study tends to make best use of the advantages of personalization and customization to modeling a Hybrid Mobile Learning System (HMLS). In addition, Cognitive styles were considered as targets to investigate how cognitive styles affect students’ reactions to the HMLS. The results show that the Holists attempted to use multiple tools, and the Serialists prefer to focus on a single item at a time. In addition, customization was helpful for Holists, while the personalization were useful for Serialists. The implications of these results for the design of Hybrid mobile learning system are discussed.