Eye tracking. New experimental possibilities in educational research

Abstract

We present advantages of oculography and eye-tracking method in educational research. In the experiment presented here we have recorded student’s eye activity during solving science choice tests as well as responses to statements concerning their interest in physics, their opinion on usefulness of physics for society and their intention to become scientist. The correlation between the intention to become a scientist and interest in physics has been presented. By analyzing the area of eye activity (heat maps) we have studied different problem solving strategies taken by well and bad prepared students. We have discovered unexpectedly high correlation of average fixation times during solving different tasks for each individual. The experiment was performed on a sample of 35 secondary school students