Session T3A 0-7803-7444-4/02/$17.00 © 2002 IEEE November 6 - 9, 2002, Boston, MA 32 nd ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference T3A-7 THE EFFECT OF PERSONALITY TYPE ON THE USAGE OF A MULTIMEDIA ENGINEERING EDUCATION SYSTEM Albert I. Reuther 1 And David G. Meyer 2 1 Albert I. Reuther, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 244 Wood St., Lexington, MA 02420, reuther@ll.mit.edu. Dr. Reuther was a graduate student at Purdue University when this research was being conducted. 2 David G. Meyer, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1285, meyer@purdue.edu. This research and DVJ2 system development was sponsored by Intel Academic Relations, the Ameritech Foundation, and Thomson Consumer Electronics. Abstract  Multimedia education has quickly entered our classrooms and offices providing tutorials and lessons on many different topics. The assumption that most people interact with these multimedia systems in similar ways can easily be made, but are these assumptions valid? What factors determine whether students will embrace computer- based multimedia-augmented learning? One factor may be a student’s personality type. This paper explores the reasons why some students may enjoy learning using computer- based educational delivery systems while others may have absolutely no enthusiasm for this type of learning, and how that enthusiasm may relate to the students’ personality types. The paper first explains the Digital VideoJockey – Version 2 (DVJ2) educational multimedia system in place at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, and then discusses the learning needs and expectations of different personality type characteristics. An analysis of students’ personality types and their DVJ2 system usage follows, and a discussion on possible ways to improve the DVJ2 system in light of this analysis concludes the paper. Index Terms  Multimedia education, technology-based education, personality type, computer system usage. INTRODUCTION Why are some students extremely enthusiastic about using computers and multimedia for their primary or auxiliary source of information in a course—some spending over thirty hours a semester for one course watching digitized video lectures? Why do others so dislike multimedia education that they feel it actually hinders their progress in a class, while others are rather indifferent and only use multimedia systems occasionally? An answer may lie in a student’s personality type. In his work to understand student motivation and learning style, Gordon Lawrence has come to the conclusion that personality type is fundamental to how individuals interact with their surroundings [4]. In this paper, we will explore how a particular educational multimedia testbed system addresses different types of learners. The intent is to explore whether certain personality types are more likely to use this type of educational resource. Based on these findings, we can begin to identify how the learning needs of different personality types are being met, as well as determine certain learning needs that are not being met and propose remedies for the perceived deficiencies. This paper is organized in the following manner. After a brief description of related work, a general introduction of the Digital VideoJockey – Version 2 (DVJ2) system is presented. Described next are the learning needs and expectations of different personality type characteristics, along with an explanation of how the students’ types were evaluated and how students’ statistics were collected. The results of statistically analyzing the relationships between students’ system usage statistics and their personality type are then presented. An analysis of how the DVJ2 system matches the needs of different personalities is then provided, followed by some concluding remarks on improvements that could be made in light of this analysis. RELATED WORK Many book chapters and papers have been published on educational methods and students’ personality types. Most notable are chapters in [4] and [11] and the books [3] and [8]. Very little research, however, has been conducted that attempts to understand the connection between computer usage and personality type. Reference [2] has a section in which the authors briefly describe the types of computer activities that appeal to students with certain personality types. Also Fuller, Norby, Pearce, and Strand published a paper studying the types of professors that like to teach Internet-based courses [3]. THE DVJ2 SYSTEM The DVJ2 system is a fully digital educational multimedia delivery testbed system developed at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. On-line since 1998, DVJ2 delivers high resolution (640x480, 30 fps) MPEG videos at a 2.5 Mbs streaming rate to networked PC clients. The server runs Starlight Networks Starworks Video Server under Windows NT, and employs a fiber-arbitrated RAID storage subsystem. The current license permits up to