As the framework indicates, eye-tracking technology is able to reveal various learning themes that describe underlying psychological processes of different learning objectives. However, the unbalanced numbers of studies found across the seven learning themes suggest that more efforts are needed to explore learning topics such as reasoning, skill learning and the ef-fects of social cognition.
Based on our analysis, it is clear that the studies included in our review have successfully employed eye-tracking mea-sures to examine or explore the cognitive processes in various topics within various themes. Temporal indicators were the most frequently used measures across all learning topics and themes. Count and spatial indicators were used depending on the research questions, for example, number of fixations was often used to show attention distribution, while scan paths were used to imply metacognitive strategies. Future studies can continue to explore the correlations between various eye-tracking measures and various learning performance measures. Understanding the above relationships should be the first step in applying eye-tracking techniques for further educational studies. Therefore, more studies are needed to build up a connection between the micro-measures (i.e., eye-tracking measures) and the macro-measures (i.e., performance or behav-ioral measures).
AsFig. 2(year-theme histogram) shows, researchers started to extensively examine individual differences in 2011. It appears that patterns of eye movements are good measures to reveal people’s (such as experts vs. novices) distinct cognitive processes. Accordingly, educators can make use of the information about individual differences to develop proper adaptive learning systems that take into consideration learner characteristics. There are studies employing eye movement data of skilled persons to guide others’ attention, but the application is limited to the learning of basic cognitive skills or clinical practice (e.g., Litchfield, Ball, Donovan, Manning, & Crawford, 2010; van Gog, Jarodzka, Scheiter, Gerjets, & Paas 2009). Furthermore, adaptive learning systems with eye-tracking-embedded technology may also be developed in the future to provide dynamic scaffoldings for all students for better learning in all learning domains. For example, interactive learning systems embedded with eye-tracking equipment may dynamically diagnose students’ learning states and needs as well as providing instant help or adapted scaffolding materials according to the eye movement data tracked by the systems.
In addition, data mining techniques such as sequential analyses may be incorporated as an approach for analyzing the huge amount of eye-tracking data. Moreover, visualizations of eye fixation data such as heat maps or hot zone pictures are powerful for demonstrating allocations of visual attention as a whole picture for individual persons or specific groups of people. Understanding how to make use of the techniques or software is important for educational researchers who are interested in conducting eye-tracking studies. On the other hand, interdisciplinary collaboration across computer engi-neering, visual studies and educational technology is encouraged in the future for developing more user-friendly and useful tools for educational research.
Furthermore, all the eye tracking studies included in the study used only ONE eye tracker in the lab environment, which somewhat restricts the practical use of the equipment in studying interactions between different subjects, and also mini-mizes the generalization of the results for authentic learning. For future studies, researchers could employ two or more eye trackers to investigate social cognition issues (e.g., parent–child interactions during storybook reading) or students’ mo-ment-to-moment eye fixations in realistic classroom settings (e.g., what and where students are looking during teachers’
presentations).
However, considering the high price of eye trackers, which means that they are not easily accessible for educators, we call for the development of lower priced devices that are designed specifically for educational purposes. Such devices do not need to have a very high sampling rate or complicated data analysis programs, which are usually the reasons for the high cost of eye tracking systems. For most educators, sentences, passages or graphical forms of information are the central regions of interest. In addition, in order to be used in authentic learning environments, eye trackers should allow slight head movements or even full mobility. Considering these needs, a high sampling rate is by no means the absolute criterion for
choosing an eye tracking system for use in educational settings. Besides, as far as the data analysis software is concerned, col-laboration between software engineers and educational researchers could help to modulate existing data analysis programs, making them suitable for education studies while reducing the cost of software development. In short, it is possible to cut down the price of eye tracking systems if we take into consideration the specific needs and features of educational research.
In fact, there are up-and-coming open source eye-trackers that are already available at a fraction of the price of the usual proprietary suppliers. For example, the open-source ITU Gazetracker developed bySan Agustin and associates (2010)is a promising software that can transform web cameras or digital video recorders into eye trackers. Meanwhile, a new wave of computer engineering research is starting the technological revolution of pervasive eye-tracking technology integrated into smart phones, tablets, laptops, etc. It is highly likely that such technological developments will promote eye trackers as easily accessible devices that can be utilized widely in educational contexts. However, without input from educators, these developing technologies could not fulfill the needs of the educational field. Hence, collaboration is required between developers of such technologies and educational researchers.
Finally, we call for attention to the relevant theoretical issues in future studies. In this review, a bridging framework is proposed to show how eye-tracking methods have been applied to educational studies and what studies should be con-ducted to gain more understandings of student learning. One issue that we have not analyzed here concerns the theories underpinning all of these studies. Although not every study explicitly discusses its underlying principles, it is clear that many of the studies reviewed in the paper are based on constructivist and developmental perspectives of learning (e.g.,Amadieu et al., 2009; Blair, Watson, & Meier, 2009; Blair, Watson, Walshe et al., 2009; Kim & Mundy, 2012; Neider & Kramer, 2011), Nevertheless, what exactly the normative learning theories are to guide eye movement studies, what prescriptive theories (e.g., multimedia learning theory, cognitive load theory, etc.) that these studies actually used in their experimental designs, and whether the research findings support the theories are not analyzed in this study. In addition, as suggested previously, since interdisciplinary and collaborative studies are needed in the future, whether there is a coherent theoretical framework that can guide all such research should be explored. Analyses of the theoretical issues will help educational researchers to appropriately apply the eye tracking methods in their studies. It is hoped that such a review of the theoretical bases will appear in the near future.
Acknowledgement
This study was supported by National Science Council in Taiwan, under the grand numbers of NSC 99 -2511-S-011-006-MY3, NSC 100-2511-S-003-039--2511-S-011-006-MY3, NSC 101-2511-S-011-001-MY2, NSC 101-2631-S-011-002 and NSC 103-2911-1-003-301.
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study
ID Author Research questions/
purposes
Related learning topic
Eye movement measures
Performance measures
Indication for learning (Learning theme) 1 Amadieu et al.
(2009)
This study explored the effects of prior knowledge (high vs. low; HPK and LPK) and concept-map structure (hierarchical vs.
network; HS and NS) on disorientation, cognitive load, and learning from non-linear documents on
‘‘the infection process of a retrograde virus (HIV)’’
Conceptual development
Total fixation duration, number of fixations, proportion of fixations
saccades
Test Effects of
instructional strategies Individual differences
2 Ariasi and Mason (2011)
This study examined whether reading a refutational or non-refutational text would induce different cognitive processing, as revealed by eye-movement analyses
Conceptual development
First pass duration, total fixation duration,
second pass fixation, total reading time
Pretest and posttest, knowledge test
Effects of instructional strategies
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes how listeners use gender and accessibility in on-line pronoun comprehension
Language Proportion Accuracy Patterns of
information processing
4 van Asselen et al. (2011)
This study aimed to study how object information can facilitate a visual search during an object-based contextual cueing task
Perception Number of fixations, average number of
5 Balslev et al.
(2012) the effect of bilingualism on the ability to control native-language
7 Beesley and Le Pelley (2010)
This study examined the impact of blocking on overt attention during a human contingency learning task
Perception Location of gaze Accuracy, RT
This study investigated an assumption imbedded in the flexibility of learned attention
10Blythe et al.
(2012)
This study examined whether inserting spaces between words in Chinese text would help children learn to read new vocabulary
11Blythe et al.
(2012)
This study examined whether inserting spaces between words in Chinese text would help children learn to read new vocabulary
(continued on next page)
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes
This study tested whether and how semantic
This study used eye tracking to investigate a novel cueing approach for directing learner attention to low salience, high relevance aspects of a complex animation whether German 3- to 4-year-olds take advantage of the information provided by verb inflection in sentence comprehension
Language Fixation duration Accuracy, RT different scenes can be exploited to guide attention
Perception Number of fixations, location of fixations,
This study presented the results of three
experiments that re-examine the question of whether partner-specific information is used by early, on-line
interpretation processes
Language Time to first fixation, how skilled readers use contextual and
morphemic information in the process of incidental vocabulary acquisition the influence of scene gist, learned spatial
associations and how these sources of information relate
Perception Latency to target, number of fixations,
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes
This study examined how readers established the meaning of a new word from the sentence context during silent reading
This study examined how visual attentional resources are allocated when learning from a complex animation
21D’Melloa et al.
(2012)
This study evaluated the efficacy of the gaze-reactive tutor in
22Goldinger et al.
(2009)
The goal was to replicate the standard ORB, contrasting recognition memory to Asian and Caucasian faces, as a function of study time
Meaning-based
23Goujon et al.
(2012)
This study examined the role of color features (cuing effect), and determining the nature of learning mechanisms
Perception Time to first fixation RT,
explicit memory
This study tested whether gender-marking on the 25Guérard et al.
(2011)
This study examined the role of awareness in anticipation and recall performance, using the Hebb repetition paradigm
Perception Gaze duration (total fixation duration)
26Guérard et al.
(2009)
This study examined the effect of ocular
suppression on spatial serial recall and the path length effect
(continued on next page)
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes 27Hegarty et al.
(2010)
This study examined how bottom-up and top-down processes interact when people view and make inferences from complex
28Henderson et al.
(2005)
This study investigated (1) do eye movements facilitate face learning? (2) are the eye-movement patterns generated during face learning recapitulated during recognition? and (3) do eye movements change during face between their actions and their actions’ effects: (1) whether saccades and their effects become associated; (2) whether these saccade-effect associations are used to select a saccade
This study tested the hypothesis that during visual search does the incidental learning of BK occur? and what does viewing behavior reveal about the efficiency of attentional deployments over time?
Perception Number of fixations, average fixation
This study examined the influence of the number of fixations on face
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes what eye movements can tell about the mechanisms of transferring relevant in attention to negative but relevant information about skin cancer risk reduction influenced both
35Jarodzka et al.
(2012)
This study applied a novel instructional method to teach these skills by showing the learners how an expert model visually searches for and interprets symptoms
This study examined how spatial contiguity affects cognitive processing learning, and whether learners who receive an integrated presentation perform better on transfer tests than those who received a separated 38Karacan et al.
(2010)
This study examined whether the effect of scene familiarity could be generalized to natural environments. Does familiarity with scene content improve detection of scene changes in a 3D virtual reality
environment?
Perception Total fixation duration, fixation position, time to first fixation
Verbal report Patterns of information processing
(continued on next page)
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes
This study explored the origins of cultural differences in eye movements when encoding and recognizing human faces and potential cultural divergence in
40Kim and Mundy (2012)
This study measured two types of JA in adults, Initiating Joint Attention (IJA) and Responding to Joint Attention
Social cognition
Total reading time Memory test (standardized spatial working memory task)
Social/cultural effects
41Kim and Rehder (2011)
This study used eye tracking during knowledge-based category learning to determine (1) whether knowledge does indeed have any effect on selective attention; (2) whether any effect of knowledge on attention is limited to which sources of information learners initially consider or whether it can emerge as a result of experience with category members; (3) whether error feedback is required to mediate those shifts
This study assessed the effect of memory interference on saccadic curvature
Perception Saccade N/A Patterns of
information processing
43Lee and Anderson(2001)
This study monitored the eye movements of people performing the KAATC task to see whether the learning in this task could also be explained by the attentional learning additional attention to and learn more from sentences that are potentially relevant to a set of pre-reading questions
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes how different forms of presentations affect
46Liu and Shen (2011)
This study investigated students’ learning process of the concept of
concentration at the elementary school level in Taiwan
47Liu et al. (2011)This study aimed to determine the impact of redundant onscreen text
This study tested whether the presentation speed deciding which of two NFPs, presented
This study reported a method for closely
(continued on next page)
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes are used to specify objects’
locations in memory can be solely determined by layout geometry.
52Mu (2010) This study explored users’
video note-taking behaviors and examined the effect of the new Smartlink design
This study examined the influences of verbalization on face learning or recognition processes
This study investigated (1) Do older adults still possess the ability to use preexisting spatial associations inherent in the target object and search scene in order to augment their search performance, and if so, are the performance benefits similar to those shown by younger adults? (2) If older adults prove able to use contextual
information, what is the time course of such usage?
Psychomotor
This study aimed to obtain insight into users’
56Ozcelik et al.
(2009)
This study investigated the underlying cause of the color coding effect by utilizing eye movement
57Ozcelik et al.
(2010)
This study aimed to examine the effects of signaling on learning outcomes and to reveal the underlying reasons for this effect by using eye movement measures
time to first fixation, probability
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes 58Pradhan et al.
(2011)
This study investigated whether a rather simple, one hour PC-based training program using error learning as a key component would reduce the number of especially long glances away from the forward roadway on the open road would limit their attention to only those stimulus dimensions needed to classify each structure and whether the changes in eye movements during learning would support a gradual or rule-based
60Rehder et al.
(2009) using an eye tracker
Conceptual
This study tested D. L.
Medin and M. M. the effects of memory retrieval processes on monitoring judgments, item difficulty in a vocabulary learning task
64Roderer et al.
(2012)
(continued on next page)
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes 65Schneider et al.
(2012)
This study investigated whether an expression has to be scanned sequentially while the nested syntactic structure is being computed or whether this structure can be extracted quickly and in parallel
Conceptual
This study examined the effect of
instruction pace on viewing behavior, that is, the way learners split their visual attention between written text and visualizations, as well as how text modality affects this viewing behavior in system-paced instruction
This study examined how learners split their visual attention between written text and visualization when they control the pace of instruction and how the learners’ viewing behavior in self-paced instruction is affected by text modality
This study examined (1) what methods can be employed when studying the ‘cognitive profile’ of near-native L2 speakers, (2) what L2 population should be in focus, and (3) what psycholinguistic processes should be discussed
Language Number of fixations, total gaze
This study examined the relationship between individual differences in face memory and eye fixation patterns on faces
Meaning-based
This study examined the involvement of prosodic knowledge in the recognition of newly learned words
Language Number of fixation, proportion, fixation position
Accuracy Patterns of information processing
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes 71She and Chen
(2009)
This study investigated the effects of presentation modes of multimedia
72Smerecnik et al.
(2010)
This study aimed to examine two possible mechanisms (cognitive workload and attention) directed to the risk information
73Stieff et al.
(2011)
This study was to (1) evaluate students’ ability fixation data and verbal protocols quantitatively proficiencies in French and native French speakers from France parse vowel-initial words preceded by liaison/z/, and whether the procedure they adopt for segmenting real words also generalizes to nonce words when solving a multiple-choice science problem
This study examined the role of attention in human perceptual learning
Perception Gaze duration (total fixation duration) three predictions of the McLaren and Mackintosh model
Perception Total reading time Accuracy, similarity rate
Patterns of information processing
(continued on next page)
Appendix. Analysis of connection to learning in each reviewed study (continued) ID Author Research questions/
purposes
Related learning topic
Eye movement measures
Performance measures
Indication for learning (Learning theme) 78Whitford and
Titone (2012)
This study investigated whether the degree of current L2 exposure modulates the relative size of L1 and L2 frequency effects
Language First fixation duration, gaze duration, skipping rate, proportion of regressions, total reading time
N/A Reexaminations
of existing
of existing