Abstract for:Effect of online interactive learning environments on students’ complex dynamic problem solving skills

Numerous studies document that students struggle to comprehend complex dynamic systems (CDS).  Following a design-based research framework, this paper reports two empirical studies with a personalized and adaptive online interactive learning environment (OILE) on supporting students learning in CDS. Also, the paper demonstrates whether scaffolding students early in their tasks using the OILE help them perform better in their subsequent tasks. The paper discusses the nature of CDS, the challenges associated to understanding such systems and how the OILE can support personalized learning in CDS. The findings of the studies show that when scaffolded using OILE, students made statistically significant improvement in their complex problem-solving performance. Results from each student’s progress log demonstrate that the students’ performance have improved in their subsequent tasks. In light of the supportive evidence from the students´ progress log and the empirical results, this paper concludes that the use of personalized and adaptive OILE to support learning about CDS is promising.