What is Performance-Based Models

Statistics indicate that the information stored in the world doubles every 2.8 years (Keegan, 2000). The problem every country faces now is not how to create more information, but how to locate and utilise the available information. This amazing phenomenon brings on the dawn of a so-called knowledge economy within which market transactions are facilitated or even driven by knowledge that is acquiring more of the properties of a commodity (Houghton & Sheehan, 2000). Corporations like General Electric (GE) spend $500 million on training and education every year, and overall $62.5 billion was budgeted for formal training by U.S. organisations in 1999 alone (Keegan, 2000). Corporations and individuals are more and more required to absorb and keep updated the new information through on-the-job or private training in order to stay competitive. Thus, lifelong learning has become a common practice for a wide range of careers ranging from engineers to sales representatives and doctors to farmers. Technology-based instruction, within which electronic learning, e-learning, is the largest component, was predicted to have 60 to 75% of share attributed to the corporate training market in 2004 (Keegan, 2000). One of the main advantages of e-learning over traditional instructor-led training is its ability to provide individualisation and adaptivity to suit the learner’s need. Adaptive learning systems can adapt the learning content and presentation according to the characteristics of the learners (Beaumont, 1994; Costa, et al., 1991; Jonassen & Wang, 1990), and they aim at providing individualised courses similar to having the one-to-one privilege from a private tutor.