The effect of personality on university students? preferences of educational software interface design

The purpose of this research is to explore educational software interface design choices of university students and make suggestions for educational software designers. Computer Aided Learning (CAL) applications do not meet the requirements and individual needs of students. In addition, CAL applications that provide students to arrange learning environment according to their needs are thought to be more qualified. In this context, educational software interface designs should be flexiable/manageable. In this research, students had chances to design interfaces which are appropriate and comfortable for themselves.Students of Education Faculties of Çanakkale 18 Mart, Dokuz Eylül and Ege Universities formed the population of the research. 545 Education faculty students in 2007-2008 Spring term were chosen as the sample. In research, a five-point-Likert type scale called ?Big Five Personality Scale? and developed by Arslan, Bacanlı and İlhan (2005) was used for data collection. This scale explains the personality including five factors and 40 attributes. According to analysis results, tables were formed and evaluations were made. Arithmetic avarege, standard deviation, x2 test were used while analysing the data. Results are given below.a) Participants mostly chose light and pastel background color tones as light blue, pink, light pink and white. Dark and cold colors as dark blue, dark gren and grey were the least chosen colors by students. The least chosen background colors were brown and its tones light brown territorial Color, although they are pastel color tones.b) Participants mostly chose cold and notr text color tones such as black, dark blue and blue.c) Participants mostly chose black text color on white backgroundcolor (%4), black text color on on light blue background (%3), black text color on light pink background color (%3) which creates opposite combinations.ç) Participants mostly chose picture (40,4%) and table (31,5%) as visual aid. Graph (28,1%) was the least chosen visual aid.d) Participants background color choices differed according to their gender. Males chose cold background colors such as black (10,4%) and blue (9,9%) much more than females. Females mostly chose warm and light background colors like light pink (16%) and pink (15,5%).e) Participants text color choices didn?t differ according to their gender. Cold and dark colors were chosen as text color.f) Female participants mostly chose picture (45,2%) much more than other visual aids. Males? visual aid choices? percentages were similar. Males? visual aid choices are sorted as table (34,7%), graph (33,2%) and picture (32,2%).g) Participants? education software interface choices didn?t differ according to their age levels.ğ) Participants? education software background color choices differed according to education field at ÖSS. Participants? education software text color and visual aid choices didn?t differ according to education field at ÖSS.h) Participants? education software background color and visual aid choices differed according to their education departments at university. Participants? education software text color choices differed according to education department at university.ı) Participants? education software interface background color choices differed according to extroversion/introvertion (x2(12)=32,33, p<0,05) and emotional stability/instability (x2(12)=33,19, p<0,05) personality traits. No difference found out between other personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness) and education software interface design choices.i) Participants? education software interface background color choices differed (x2(12)=32,33, p<0,05) according to extroversion/introvertion personality trait. Extravert participants mostly chose warm background color tones. Introvert participants mostly chose cold background color tones.j) Participants? education software interface background color choices differed (x2(12)=33,19, p<0,05) according to emotional stability/instability personality trait. Emotionally stable participants mostly chose warm colors as background color. Emotionally instable participants mostly chose cold colors as background color.k) In this research, it is found out that approaches generalizing personality and education software interface choices may be misleading.