learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Nabil Ben Abdallah and Françoise Poyet
notion of project. The difference between other constructivist environments and what virtual
environments potentially offer can be described as making students not only active, but also actors,
i.e. members and contributors of the social and information space". For example, if we consider the
learning user, these theoretical possibilities provided by a VLE should not make us forget that there is
always a gap between the use of VLE as it is defined by the designers according to the representation
that they have of learning activities, and the use of VLE as actually practiced by the learner as
regards what he must do to achieve his objectives. The fact that the use of the VLE by the learner is
different from that defined by the designer is not in itself a design problem or a dysfunction in learning,
it is inherent to what Perriault (Perriault 2008) called the logic of use which is construction by the
individual of a choice of instrument and a kind of employment he uses to achieve a project.
This description of the various facets which a VLE can have is necessary to even better understand
the difficulties that we have to evaluate it. Indeed, for this evaluation to be reasonably reliable, it must
include both the product VLE (interface and functionalities) and the learnings it supports. We believe
the facility with which a VLE can be used and the variety of its functionalities alone does not explain
the success or the failure of its design. Other factors must be taken into account to understand and
perhaps predict the adoption or not of a given VLE by the learning actors.
This specific acception of the evaluation takes again the distinction made by Nielsen (Nielsen, 1994)
between practical acceptability and social acceptability of a computer system. Nielsen does not
describe the components of social acceptability in detail, but it clearly emphasizes its significance in
the overall system acceptability. We are indeed dealing with social acceptability which refers to the
way in which the learning actors perceive the different stakes related to the use of a VLE in a learning
situation. These actors react favorably or unfavorably to the use of VLE according to opportunity,
risks, and benefits that may arise from this use. Practical acceptability refers to a kind of "diagnostic of
use" in which the designers as well as the learning actors are invited to measure the utility, for
learning tasks, of functionalities suggested by a VLE and the way in which they can be used. Here
they are two principal categories of a computer system evaluation: usability and utility (we will deal
with that idea later). Practical acceptability can also take into account the factors (such as the
compatibility with the existing systems, the cost, the reliability, etc.) which support the integration of a
VLE in a given learning situation.
3. Evaluation of computer systems and VLEs
The concept of usability, introduced by Eason (Eason, 1984) and developed by other authors (Nielsen
1994; Bastien 2001; Rosson 2001, Shneiderman 2005) generally refers to the quality of the interface.
Bastien suggest that the usability is defined in a way much broader designating the related aspects as
much in the use of the computer systems that those related to the utility of these system. The two
dimensions (usability and utility) are therefore not completely independent: an interface with good
ergonomic qualities (optimal usability) cannot alone satisfy the user’s expectations if essential
functions for carrying out the task (real utility) are not implemented in the application. Standard ISO
9241-11 defines the usability of a computer system as follows: "the extent to which a product can be
used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a
specified context of use".
Two approaches are generally used to evaluate the computer systems: analytical and empirical; these
approaches are not necessarily opposite but complementary. The data collected from empirical
methods are primarily behavioral; they are used to locate the problems encountered by users. As for
data collected from analytical methods, these provide information on the ergonomic quality of the
interface without the user directly interacting with the system.
The evaluation methods can be complementary according to the objective of the evaluation, to the
means used and the moment of the life cycle of the application. Dix (Dix, 1998) defined eight criteria
to help the appraiser in the choice of a suitable evaluation technique. They are: the time of the
evaluation (in relation to the life cycle of the application), the type of data to be collected, human and
material resources which are available, constraints imposed by the evaluation, mode of evaluation
(laboratory or field), the degree of objectivity or subjectivity sought, information available and data
acquisition mode (online/offline). One or several methods may be used to collect the maximum
amount of information on the system being observed in order to bring the evaluation operation to a
successful conclusion. For example, interviews and questionnaires may supplement cognitive
walkthrough (Lewis 1992; Mahatody 2010) by providing information on the characteristics of the users
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