The Authoring Tool of ADULT: Adaptive Understanding and Learning Text Environment

Abstract

Previous research in the domain of text comprehension in Informatics has demonstrated that readers with little knowledge in this domain benefit from a coherent text, whereas high-knowledge readers benefit from a minimally coherent text. With respect to educational applications, these findings suggest constructing several versions of a text in order to adapt to varying levels of knowledge among readers. In this paper we present the design of the authoring tool of the learning environment ADULT (Adaptive Understanding and Learning from Texts), capable of supporting authors while constructing texts of different coherence in the domain of Informatics, accompanied by questions or tasks designed to access students’ comprehension on line. This way students will be activated to use their background knowledge while reading and more students will have the opportunity to achieve better learning results in learning from Informatics texts than reading a single textbook in Informatics targeted at an average reader.