e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning

13.9. What We Don't Know About Learner Control

Although we have seen evidence that learners low in prior knowledge or metacognitive skills benefit from program control, we need to know more about the relationship between prior knowledge, metacognitive skills, and various navigational control options. For example, do high metacognitive skills override low prior knowledge? Do learners with high metacognitive skills benefit from a different type of navigational structure than those with low metacognitive skills?

Although adaptive advisement seems to have advantages compared to program control or learner control, we need more information on the cost benefit of dynamic adaptation. Under what circumstances will the resource investment made in adaptive ...