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ERIC Number: EJ921968
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1554-9178
EISSN: N/A
Eye-Gaze Patterns as Students Study Worked-out Examples in Mechanics
Smith, Adam D.; Mestre, Jose P.; Ross, Brian H.
Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, v6 n2 p020118-1-020118-9 Jul-Dec 2010
This study explores what introductory physics students actually look at when studying worked-out examples. Our classroom experiences indicate that introductory physics students neither discuss nor refer to the conceptual information contained in the text of worked-out examples. This study is an effort to determine to what extent students incorporate the textual information into the way they study. Student eye-gaze patterns were recorded as they studied the examples to aid them in solving a target problem. Contrary to our expectations from classroom interactions, students spent 40 plus or minus 3% of their gaze time reading the textual information. Their gaze patterns were also characterized by numerous jumps between corresponding mathematical and textual information, implying that they were combining information from both sources. Despite this large fraction of time spent reading the text, student recall of the conceptual information contained therein remained very poor. We also found that having a particular problem in mind had no significant effects on the gaze-patterns or conceptual information retention. (Contains 8 figures and 2 tables.)
American Physical Society. One Physics Ellipse 4th Floor, College Park, MD 20740-3844. Tel: 301-209-3200; Fax: 301-209-0865; e-mail: assocpub@aps.org; Web site: http://prst-per.aps.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A