University of Tabuk

University of Birmingham

The Impact of Adaptation Based on Students’ Dyslexia Type 

An Empirical Evaluation of Students’ Satisfaction

Prepared by: Weam Gaoud Alghabban, wga814@cs.bham.ac.uk

Supervised by: Robert Hendley

School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

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Problem:Dyslexic child

  • Dyslexia is a widespread problem of reading.
  • It occurs in all languages and cultures.
  • Teaching for dyslexia is usually “one size fits all“.
  • This causes frustration and dissatisfaction for students.
  • Dyslexia has different types and therefore reading problems.

Aim:

  • Adapting teaching material based on dyslexia type.
  • Evaluation of whether it works.

Theoretical Foundation:

  • Different types of dyslexia cause different problems in different languages.
  • They can be interpreted according to The dual-route theory of reading (Figure 1).
Figure 1. The dual-route model.
Figure 1. The dual-route theory of reading.

Proposed Architecture:

  • Three main components are included in the proposed architecture: domain model,  dyslexic learner model and adaptation model (Figure 2).
  • The diagnosis of dyslexia type is described in the dyslexic learner model.
Figure 2. The proposed architecture.
Figure 2. The proposed architecture.

Evaluation Methodology:

  • 40 Arabic dyslexic children participated.
  • 2 groups are balanced by age and prior reading level.
  • 2 measurements: learning gain and student satisfaction.
Figure 3. Evaluation methodology.
Figure 3. Evaluation methodology.

Results:

Table 1: Satisfaction scores of dyslexic students.

Table 1: Satisfaction scores of dyslexic students.

Figure 4. Pre-test, post-test and learning gain immediate results of the adaptive and control groups.
Figure 4. Pre-test, post-test and immediate learning gain results of the adaptive and control groups.

Conclusion and Future Work:

  • Matching learning material to dyslexia type improves learning gain and students’ satisfaction.
  • In future, we will apply to different languages, using more learning material and including additional attributes of the learner.

Acknowledgement:

We would like to thank the University of Tabuk in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for providing the opportunity to study at The University of Birmingham under its sponsorship and funding. 

References:

References