Guiding students to the right questions: adaptive navigation support in an E-Learning system for Java programming

Rapid growth of the volume of interactive questions available to the students of modern E-Learning courses placed the problem of personalized guidance on the agenda of E-Learning researchers. Without proper guidance, students frequently select too simple or too complicated problems and ended either bored or discouraged. This paper explores a specific personalized guidance technology known as adaptive navigation support. We developed JavaGuide, a system, which guides students to appropriate questions in a Java programming course, and investigated the effect of personalized guidance a three-semester long classroom study. The results of this study confirm the educational and motivational effects of adaptive navigation support.