Analysis of Reading Behavior Based on Students’ Cognitive Styles and Learning Styles

Abstract

This study reports the results on the relationship between cognitive style and learning style to understand the reading behavior of undergraduate students using an e-book system from the standpoint of a learning analytics view. Data are recorded from 102 undergraduate students at a university in China for over 4 months. The obtained results indicate that students with an analytical cognitive style achieve the highest performance compared with the other cognitive style groups (quasi-intuitive, adaptive, and quasi-analytic) and better fit the global learning style. Further, their reading behavior is different from that of the other three cognitive style groups (quasi-intuitive, adaptive, and quasi-analytic) as they re-read the first half to better understand the complete picture, following which, they continue their reading smoothly. Personalized learning is being adopted by rapidly growing educational institutions worldwide. The results provide tangible evidence for teachers to better consider the characteristics of students to design classrooms and students to better design learning plans according to their characteristics.