Verbal Ability and Structured Navigation on Learning with Hypertext

Learners bring their unique individual perceptions, preferences, and abilities to a learning situation. The effect of individual differences on learning depends in part on how the instructional system accommodates for these differences. The current study examined the role of individual differences and structured navigation in hypertext learning. It was predicted that learning outcome would depend on how well the hypertext design operates together with the learner’s individual attributes. Ninety-seven participants participated in one of four groups of a 2 X 2 between-subjects factorial design, which focused on the interaction between the levels of the navigation structure (unconstrained or expert constrained) and the levels of the participants' verbal ability (high or low). General support was found for the hypothesis. Overall, learners with high-verbal ability performed better on an unconstrained navigation structure than those with low-verbal ability; whereas in an expert-constrained navigation this difference between verbal ability levels was smaller. The results have implications for the design of hypertext-based learning systems.