Study skills, multimedia and business economics

The purpose of the multimedia program "Business Economics and Learning Styles" is to encourage students (polytechnic) to reflect on the way they study and to give them experience in applying a strategy to help them solve problems in Business Economics (Vernooij, 1993). Part 1 of the program is devoted to general matters. In it, the student is presented with situations which are accompanied by the question 'How would you handle this?'. This is followed by a learning style test (Kolb, 1984). The student's preferred approach or learning style is determined on the basis of the outcome of Part 1. This preference forms the input to Part 2 of the program, which is devoted to Business Economics. Assistance offered in this part of the program is tailored to the learning style the student uses to solve Business Economics problems. In the presentation excerpts from the program are used to show (a) how the student's process of reflection is stimulated, and (b) how help geared towards a specific learning style is presented. Finally, our initial experience in using the program for tutoring students is discussed.