Learner Personas in Technology-Enhanced Learning

In modern education, the teaching and learning approach should be adapted to the specific needs and abilities of students using innovative strategies and educational technologies. This can be achieved using a representation of the student’s identity, characteristics, preferences, and needs, referred to as a learner persona. Learner personas are mainly used in the field of user experience design, but this approach is also becoming increasingly popular in the field of education. The aim of this paper is to introduce the concept of learner persona in the context of technology-enhanced learning and to provide an overview of the information contained in learner personas, the methods used to create them, and examples of their possible use. The creation of a persona can involve a combination of real or imagined data as well as demographic and biographical data collected using qualitative and quantitative methods. In the field of technology-enhanced learning, the persona typically includes the student’s preferred learning styles, their level of knowledge or skills, their goals, the challenges they face, and similar. This information is used to select an appropriate pedagogical strategy, learning activities, and tools that have the potential to positively influence the student’s motivation, engagement and the achievement of learning outcomes.