Examining the interrelation between Interaction Analysis and Learning Styles in blog-based collaborative learning activities: The case of the G.I.AN.T. toolkit

The current paper presents a case study for evaluating an Interaction Analysis toolkit for blogs, called G.I.AN.T. (Graphical Interaction Analysis Tool). The paper focuses on the perspective of the students and investigates the hypothesis that Learning Styles interrelate with Interaction Analysis graphs produced by the G.I.AN.T. toolkit. This paper also provides further evaluation evidence for the G.I.AN.T. toolkit, in terms of general usability, usefulness, and user interface satisfaction. Overall, students were to a large extent satisfied with their blogging experience, rating the automatically generated Interaction Analysis graphs as useful, easy to understand and decode. Moreover, it was concluded that the G.I.AN.T.´s graphs interrelate with the Learning Styles of the users, with visual and global learning style students having a more positive attitude towards the use of G.I.AN.T.