Measuring cognitive load and cognition: metrics for technology-enhanced learning

This critical and reflective literature review examines international research published over the last decade to summarise the different kinds of measures that have been used to explore cognitive load and critiques the strengths and limitations of those focussed on the development of direct empirical approaches. Over the last 40 years, cognitive load theory has become established as one of the most successful and influential theoretical explanations of cognitive processing during learning. Despite this success, attempts to obtain direct objective measures of the theory's central theoretical construct – cognitive load – have proved elusive. This obstacle represents the most significant outstanding challenge for successfully embedding the theoretical and experimental work on cognitive load in empirical data from authentic learning situations. Progress to date on the theoretical and practical approaches to cognitive load are discussed along with the influences of individual differences on cognitive load in order to assess the prospects for the development and application of direct empirical measures of cognitive load especially in technology-rich contexts

'There's more than meets the eye': analysing verbal protocols, gazes and sketches on external mathematical representations

When learners are asked to verbalise their thoughts about multiple mathematical representations, some researchers are left to analyse utterances based on video records of activity which may have ambiguous signifiers. They are also faced with post hoc analysis of paper-based worksheets, in which temporal order has to be guessed. In this paper, attempts to minimise such methodological problems by means of recent technologies such as eye-tracking, tablet PC screen capture, digital video cameras and the latest video analysis tools are illustrated in the context of a study of the effect of varying representational instantiations on learners' problem-solving strategies

Robust Modeling of Epistemic Mental States

This work identifies and advances some research challenges in the analysis of facial features and their temporal dynamics with epistemic mental states in dyadic conversations. Epistemic states are: Agreement, Concentration, Thoughtful, Certain, and Interest. In this paper, we perform a number of statistical analyses and simulations to identify the relationship between facial features and epistemic states. Non-linear relations are found to be more prevalent, while temporal features derived from original facial features have demonstrated a strong correlation with intensity changes. Then, we propose a novel prediction framework that takes facial features and their nonlinear relation scores as input and predict different epistemic states in videos. The prediction of epistemic states is boosted when the classification of emotion changing regions such as rising, falling, or steady-state are incorporated with the temporal features. The proposed predictive models can predict the epistemic states with significantly improved accuracy: correlation coefficient (CoERR) for Agreement is 0.827, for Concentration 0.901, for Thoughtful 0.794, for Certain 0.854, and for Interest 0.913.Comment: Accepted for Publication in Multimedia Tools and Application, Special Issue: Socio-Affective Technologie

Readers’ cognitive processes during IELTS reading tests: evidence from eye tracking

The research described in this report investigates readers' mental processes as they complete onscreen IELTS (International English Language Testing System) reading test items. It employs up-to-date eye tracking technology to research readers' eye movements and aims, among other things, to contribute to an understanding of the cognitive validity of reading test items (Glaser. 1991; Field forthcoming). Participants were a group of Malaysian undergraduates (n=71) taking an onscreen test consisting of two IELTS reading passages with a total of 11 test items. The eye movements of a random sample of these participants (n=38) were tracked. Questionnaire and stimulated recall interview data were also collected, and were important in order to interpret and explain the eye tracking data. Findings demonstrated significant differences between successful and unsuccessful test-takers on a number of dimensions, including their ability to read expeditiously (Khalifa and Weir. 2009). and their focus on particular aspects of the test items and the reading texts. This demonstrates the potential of eye tracking, in combination with post- hoc interview and questionnaire data, to offer new insights into the cognitive processes of successful and unsuccessful candidates in a reading test. It also gives unprecedented insights into the cognitive processing of successful and unsuccessful readers doing language tests. As a consequence, the findings should be of value to teachers and learners, and also to examination boards seeking to validate and prepare reading tests, as well as psycholinguists and others interested in the cognitive processes of readers

The feasibility of capturing learner interactions based on logs informed by eye-tracking and remote observation studies

Two small studies, one an eye-tracking study and the other a remote observation study, have been conducted to investigate ways to identify two kinds of online learner interactions: users flicking through the web pages in "browsing" action, and users engaging with the content of a page in "learning" action. The video data from four participants of the two small studies using the OpenLearn open educational resource materials offers some evidence for differentiating between 'browsing' and 'learning'. Further analysis of the data has considered possible ways of identifying similar browsing and learning actions based on automatic user logs. This research provides a specification for researching the pedagogical value of capturing and transforming logs of user interactions into external forms of representations. The paper examines the feasibility and challenge of capturing learner interactions giving examples of external representations such as sequence flow charts, timelines, and table of logs. The objective users information these represent offer potential for understanding user interactions both to aid design and improve feedback means that they should be given greater consideration alongside other more subjective ways to research user experience

Identifying learning style through eye tracking technology in adaptive learning systems

Learner learning style represents a key principle and core value of the adaptive learning systems (ALS). Moreover, understanding individual learner learning styles is a very good condition for having the best services of resource adaptation. However, the majority of the ALS, which consider learning styles, use questionnaires in order to detect it, whereas this method has a various disadvantages, For example, it is unsuitable for some kinds of respondents, time-consuming to complete, it may be misunderstood by respondent, etc. In the present paper, we propose an approach for automatically detecting learning styles in ALS based on eye tracking technology, because it represents one of the most informative characteristics of gaze behavior. The experimental results showed a high relationship among the Felder-Silverman Learning Style and the eye movements recorded whilst learning

学生の満足度に付随したヴァーチャルラーニングにおける有効性向上の創造と非言語的行動についての調査

国立大学法人長岡技術科学大

Using Eye-Tracking to Assess the Application of Divisibility Rules when Dividing a Multi-Digit Dividend by a Single Digit Divisor

Conference ProceedingsThe Department of Basic Education in South Africa has identified certain problem areas in Mathematics of which the factorisation of numbers was specifically identified as a problem area for Grade 9 learners. The building blocks for factorisation should already have been established in Grades 4, 5 and 6. Knowing the divisibility rules, will assist learners to simplify mathematical calculations such as factorisation of numbers, manipulating fractions and determining if a given number is a prime number. When a learner has to indicate, by only giving the answer, if a dividend is divisible by a certain single digit divisor, the teacher has no insight in the learner’s reasoning. If the answer is correct, the teacher does not know if the learner guessed the answer or applied the divisibility rule correctly or incorrectly. A pre-post experiment design was used to investigate the effect of revision on the difference in gaze behaviour of learners before and after revision of divisibility rules. The gaze behaviour was analysed before they respond to a question on divisibility. It is suggested that if teachers have access to learners’ answers, motivations and gaze behaviour, they can identify if learners (i) guessed the answers, (ii) applied the divisibility rules correctly, (iii) applied the divisibility rules correctly but made mental calculation errors, or (iv) applied the divisibility rules wrongly