Evaluating the correspondence of educational software to learning theories

Spyropoulou, Maria and Ntourou, Dimitra and Simaki, Vasiliki and Malagkoniari, Dionysia and Sorra, Maria (2013) Evaluating the correspondence of educational software to learning theories. In: PCI '13 Proceedings of the 17th Panhellenic Conference on Informatics. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, New York, pp. 250-257. ISBN 9781450319690

Abstract

As new technologies emerge, more and more people depend on them for a variety of purposes. Now more than ever there is a tendency for technological implications to substitute for face-to-face communication and education. In this paper we attempt to investigate whether the usability and pedagogical factors for quality educational platforms meet the expectations of three dominant learning theories of the past century, which, namely are: behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism. We assign specific factors derived from 9 evaluation models to the 3 learning theories. A list of 15 questions was produced to help evaluators in the assessment of the educational software. Then we evaluated 11 educational websites that aim to help anglophone students improve their language skills e.g. through grammar and spelling exercises. The results show the level of correspondence of these educational websites to the learning theories.