Abstract
This study aims to provide a systematic review of recent eye-tracking studies conducted with children and adolescents in learning settings, as well as a scoping review of the technologies and machine learning approaches used for eye-tracking. To this end, 68 empirical studies containing 78 experiments were analyzed. Eye-tracking devices as well as the ever-evolving mechanisms of gaze prediction endorsed in the prior and current research were identified. The review results indicated a set of salient patterns governing the employment of eye-tracking measures and the inferred cognitive constructs in learning, along with the common practices in analyzing and presenting the eye-tracking data. Eye-tracking has been used to track engagement, learning interactions, and learning-relevant cognitive activities mainly in a research lab or a highly-controlled learning setting. The mechanisms of gaze capturing and prediction with learners in a dynamic and authentic learning environment are evolving.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Articles marked with an asterisk were included in the systematic review
Alemdag, E., & Cagiltay, K. (2018). A systematic review of eye tracking research on multimedia learning. Computers & Education, 125, 413–428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.06.023
Anderson, J. R. (2005). Cognitive psychology and its implications. Macmillan.
Anderson, J. R., Bothell, D., & Douglass, S. (2004). Eye movements do not reflect retrieval processes: Limits of the eye-mind hypothesis. Psychological Science, 15(4), 225–231. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00656.x
Andrzejewska, M., & Stolińska, A. (2016). Comparing the difficulty of tasks using eye tracking combined with subjective and behavioural criteria. Journal of Eye Movement Research. https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.9.3.3
Bagot, K. L., Kuo, F. E., & Allen, F. C. (2007). Amendments to the perceived restorative components scale for children (PRCS-C II). Children Youth and Environments, 17(4), 124–127. https://doi.org/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.17.4.0124
*Barnes, A. E., & Kim, Y. S. (2016). Low-skilled adult readers look like typically developing child readers: A comparison of reading skills and eye movement behavior. Reading and Writing, 29(9), 1889–1914. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-016-9657-5
Bauer, P. J., & Dugan, J. A. (2020). Memory development. Neural circuit and cognitive development (pp. 395–412). Academic Press.
Bendall, R. C., Lambert, S., Galpin, A., Marrow, L. P., & Cassidy, S. (2019). Psychophysiological indices of cognitive style: A triangulated study incorporating neuroimaging, eye-tracking, psychometric and behavioral measures. Personality and Individual Differences, 144, 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.02.034
Blascheck, T., Kurzhals, K., Raschke, M., Burch, M., Weiskopf, D., & Ertl, T. (2017). Visualization of eye tracking data: A taxonomy and survey. Computer Graphics Forum, 36(8), 260–284. https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.13079
Bradbury-Jones, C., Breckenridge, J. P., Clark, M. T., Herber, O. R., Jones, C., & Taylor, J. (2019). Advancing the science of literature reviewing in social research: The focused mapping review and synthesis. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 22(5), 451–462. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2019.1576328
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13620-004
*Bolden, D., Barmby, P., Raine, S., & Gardner, M. (2015). How young children view mathematical representations: A study using eye-tracking technology. Educational Research, 57(1), 59–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2014.983718
*Bosma, E., & Nota, N. (2020). Cognate facilitation in Frisian-Dutch bilingual children’s sentence reading: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 189, 104699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104699
Burris, J. L., Barry-Anwar, R. A., & Rivera, S. M. (2017). An eye tracking investigation of attentional biases towards affect in young children. Developmental Psychology, 53(8), 1418. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000345
Carter, B. T., & Luke, S. G. (2020). Best practices in eye tracking research. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 155, 49–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2020.05.010
*Childers, J. B., Porter, B., Dolan, M., Whitehead, C. B., & McIntyre, K. P. (2020). Does children’s visual attention to specific objects affect their verb learning? First Language, 40(1), 21–40.
*Chita-Tegmark, M., Arunachalam, S., Nelson, C. A., & Tager-Flusberg, H. (2015). Eye-tracking measurements of language processing: Developmental differences in children at high risk for ASD. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45(10), 3327–3338.
*Clinton, V., Cooper, J. L., Michaelis, J. E., Alibali, M. W., & Nathan, M. J. (2017). How revisions to mathematical visuals affect cognition: Evidence from eye tracking. Eye-tracking technology applications in educational research (pp. 195–218). IGI Global.
Cognolato, M., Atzori, M., & Müller, H. (2018). Head-mounted eye gaze tracking devices: An overview of modern devices and recent advances. Journal of Rehabilitation and Assistive Technologies Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1177/2055668318773991
Cowen, L., Ball, L. J., & Delin, J. (2002). An eye movement analysis of web page usability. People and computers XVI-memorable yet invisible (pp. 317–335). Springer.
*Dahlstrom-Hakki, I., Asbell-Clarke, J., & Rowe, E. (2019). Showing is knowing: The potential and challenges of using neurocognitive measures of implicit learning in the classroom. Mind, Brain, and Education, 13(1), 30–40. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12177
*Desmeules-Trudel, F., Moore, C., & Zamuner, T. S. (2020). Monolingual and bilingual children’s processing of coarticulation cues during spoken word recognition. Journal of Child Language, 47(6), 1189–1206. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000920000100
Duchowski, A. T. (2018). Gaze-based interaction: A 30 year retrospective. Computers & Graphics, 73, 59–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2018.04.002
Dye, M. W., & Hauser, P. C. (2014). Sustained attention, selective attention and cognitive control in deaf and hearing children. Hearing Research, 309, 94–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2013.12.001
Ellis, N. C., Hafeez, K., Martin, K. I., Chen, L., Boland, J., & Sagarra, N. (2014). An eye-tracking study of learned attention in second language acquisition. Applied Psycholinguistics, 35(3), 547–579. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716412000501
*Eilers, S., Tiffin-Richards, S. P., & Schroeder, S. (2018). Individual differences in children’s pronoun processing during reading: Detection of incongruence is associated with higher reading fluency and more regressions. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 173, 250–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.04.005
*Erickson, L. C., Thiessen, E. D., Godwin, K. E., Dickerson, J. P., & Fisher, A. V. (2015). Endogenously and exogenously driven selective sustained attention: Contributions to learning in kindergarten children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 138, 126–134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2015.04.011
Faber, M., Krasich, K., Bixler, R. E., Brockmole, J. R., & D’Mello, S. K. (2020). The eye–mind wandering link: Identifying gaze indices of mind wandering across tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 46(10), 1201–1221. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000743
*Falck-Ytter, T. (2015). Gaze performance during face-to-face communication: A live eye tracking study of typical children and children with autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 17, 78–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2015.06.007
*Falck-Ytter, T., Carlström, C., & Johansson, M. (2015). Eye contact modulates cognitive processing differently in children with autism. Child Development, 86(1), 37–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12273
Frazier, T. W., Klingemier, E. W., Parikh, S., Speer, L., Strauss, M. S., Eng, C., Hardan, A. Y., & Youngstrom, E. A. (2018). Development and validation of objective and quantitative eye tracking—based measures of autism risk and symptom levels. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(11), 858–866. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2018.06.023
Fisher, A., Thiessen, E., Godwin, K., Kloos, H., & Dickerson, J. (2013). Assessing selective sustained attention in 3-to 5-year-old children: Evidence from a new paradigm. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 114(2), 275–294. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.07.006
Findlay, J. M., Findlay, J. M., & Gilchrist, I. D. (2003). Active vision: The psychology of looking and seeing. Oxford University Press.
Forssman, L., Ashorn, P., Ashorn, U., Maleta, K., Matchado, A., Kortekangas, E., & Leppänen, J. M. (2017). Eye-tracking-based assessment of cognitive function in low-resource settings. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 102(4), 301–302. https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2016-310525
*Garcia-Zapirain, B., de la Torre Díez, I., & López-Coronado, M. (2017). Dual system for enhancing cognitive abilities of children with ADHD using leap motion and eye-tracking technologies. Journal of Medical Systems, 41(7), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-017-0757-9
Gaskell, M. G., & Dumay, N. (2003). Lexical competition and the acquisition of novel words. Cognition, 89(2), 105–132. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(03)00070-2
Geangu, E., Hauf, P., Bhardwaj, R., & Bentz, W. (2011). Infant pupil diameter changes in response to others’ positive and negative emotions. PLoS ONE, 6(11), e27132. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0027132
Geisen, E., & Bergstrom, J. R. (2017). Usability testing for survey research. Morgan Kaufmann. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-803656-3.00001-4
George, A., & Routray, A. (2016). Real-time eye gaze direction classification using convolutional neural network. 2016 international conference on signal processing and communications (SPCOM) (pp. 1–5). IEEE.
Giannakos, M. N., Papavlasopoulou, S., & Sharma, K. (2020). Monitoring children’s learning through wearable eye-tracking: The case of a making-based coding activity. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 19(1), 10–21. https://doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2019.2941929
Godfroid, A. (2013). Eye tracking. In P. J. Robinson (Ed.), The Routledge encyclopedia of second language acquisition (pp. 234–236). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315775616
Goswami, U. (2019). Cognitive development and cognitive neuroscience: The learning brain. Routledge.
Grant, M. J., & Booth, A. (2009). A typology of reviews: An analysis of 14 review types and associated methodologies. Health Information & Libraries Journal, 26(2), 91–108.
Groves, P. M., & Thompson, R. F. (1970). Habituation: A dual-process theory. Psychological Review, 77(5), 419.
*Gulz, A., Londos, L., & Haake, M. (2020). Preschoolers’ understanding of a teachable agent-based game in early mathematics as reflected in their gaze behaviors—an experimental study. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 30(1), 38–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-020-00193-4
*Hahn, N., Snedeker, J., & Rabagliati, H. (2015). Rapid linguistic ambiguity resolution in young children with autism spectrum disorder: Eye tracking evidence for the limits of weak central coherence. Autism Research, 8(6), 717–726. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.1487
Harezlak, K., & Kasprowski, P. (2018). Application of eye tracking in medicine: A survey, research issues and challenges. Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics, 65, 176–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compmedimag.2017.04.006
Hannula, D. E., Ryan, J. D., Tranel, D., & Cohen, N. J. (2007). Rapid onset relational memory effects are evident in eye movement behavior, but not in hippocampal amnesia. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(10), 1690–1705. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.10.1690
*Hautala, J., Kiili, C., Kammerer, Y., Loberg, O., Hokkanen, S., & Leppänen, P. H. (2018). Sixth graders’ evaluation strategies when reading Internet search results: An eye-tracking study. Behaviour & Information Technology, 37(8), 761–773. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929x.2018.1477992
*Heathcote, L. C., Lau, J. Y. F., Mueller, S. C., Eccleston, C., Fox, E., Bosmans, M., & Vervoort, T. (2017). Child attention to pain and pain tolerance are dependent upon anxiety and attention control: An eye-tracking study. European Journal of Pain, 21(2), 250–263. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejp.920
*Hessel, A. K., Nation, K., & Murphy, V. A. (2021). Comprehension monitoring during reading: An eye-tracking study with children learning English as an additional language. Scientific Studies of Reading, 25(2), 159–178.
Huang, M. X., Kwok, T. C., Ngai, G., Chan, S. C., & Leong, H. V. (2016). Building a person-alized, auto-calibrating eye tracker from user interactions. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 5169–5179). CHI.
Holmqvist, K., Nyström, M., Andersson, R., Dewhurst, R., Jarodzka, H., & Van de Weijer, J. (2011). Eye tracking: A comprehensive guide to methods and measures. OUP Oxford.
Hosp, B., Eivazi, S., Maurer, M., Fuhl, W., Geisler, D., & Kasneci, E. (2020). RemoteEye: An open-source high-speed remote eye tracker: Implementation insights of a pupil-and glint-detection algorithm for high-speed remote eye tracking. Behavior Research Methods, 52(3), 1387–1401. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-019-01305-2
*Howard, L. H., Riggins, T., & Woodward, A. L. (2020). Learning from others: The effects of agency on event memory in young children. Child Development, 91(4), 1317–1335. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13303
Huettig, F., Rommers, J., & Meyer, A. S. (2011). Using the visual world paradigm to study language processing: A review and critical evaluation. Acta Psychologica, 137(2), 151–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.11.003
Irwin, D. E. (2004). Fixation location and fixation duration as indices of cognitive processing. The Interface of Language, Vision, and Action: Eye Movements and the Visual World, 217, 105–133. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203488430
Jacob, R. J., & Karn, K. S. (2003). Eye tracking in human-computer interaction and usability research: Ready to deliver the promises. The mind’s eye (pp. 573–605). North-Holland.
*Jiang, S., Jiang, X., & Siyanova-Chanturia, A. (2020). The processing of multiword expressions in children and adults: An eye-tracking study of Chinese. Applied Psycholinguistics, 41(4), 901–931. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716420000296
*Jian, Y. C., & Ko, H. W. (2017). Influences of text difficulty and reading ability on learning illustrated science texts for children: An eye movement study. Computers & Education, 113, 263–279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2017.06.002
Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review, 87(4), 329. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.87.4.329
*Jung, Y. J., Zimmerman, H. T., & Pérez-Edgar, K. (2018). A methodological case study with mobile eye-tracking of child interaction in a science museum. TechTrends, 62(5), 509–517. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-018-0310-9
Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (1989). The experience of nature: A psychological perspective. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1037/030621
Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182. https://doi.org/10.1016/0272-4944(95)90001-2
Kaakinen, J. K., Ballenghein, U., Tissier, G., & Baccino, T. (2018). Fluctuation in cognitive engagement during reading: Evidence from concurrent recordings of postural and eye movements. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 44(10), 1671. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000539
*Khu, M., Chambers, C. G., & Graham, S. A. (2020). Preschoolers flexibly shift between speakers’ perspectives during real-time language comprehension. Child Development, 91(3), e619–e634. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13270
Kiefer, P., Giannopoulos, I., Raubal, M., & Duchowski, A. (2017). Eye tracking for spatial research: Cognition, computation, challenges. Spatial Cognition & Computation, 17(1–2), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/13875868.2016.1254634
King, J., & Markant, J. (2020). Individual differences in selective attention and scanning dynamics influence children’s learning from relevant non-targets in a visual search task. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 193, 104797. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104797
Kitchenham, B. (2004). Procedures for performing systematic reviews. Technical report TR/SE0401, Keele University, and Technical Report 0400011T.1, National ICT Australia. https://www.inf.ufsc.br/~aldo.vw/kitchenham.pdf
Klingner, J. (2010). Measuring cognitive load during visual tasks by combining pupillometry and eye tracking. Stanford University.
*Koch, F. S., Sundqvist, A., Thornberg, U. B., Nyberg, S., Lum, J. A., Ullman, M. T., Barr, R., Rudner, M., & Heimann, M. (2020). Procedural memory in infancy: Evidence from implicit sequence learning in an eye-tracking paradigm. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 191, 104733. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104733
*Köder, F., & Falkum, I. L. (2020). Children’s metonymy comprehension: Evidence from eye-tracking and picture selection. Journal of Pragmatics, 156, 191–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.07.007
Kooiker, M. J., Pel, J. J., van der Steen-Kant, S. P., & van der Steen, J. (2016). A method to quantify visual information processing in children using eye tracking. JoVE (journal of Visualized Experiments), 113, e54031. https://doi.org/10.3791/54031
Korbach, A., Brünken, R., & Park, B. (2018). Differentiating different types of cognitive load: A comparison of different measures. Educational Psychology Review, 30(2), 503–529. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-017-9404-8
Krafka, K., Khosla, A., Kellnhofer, P., Kannan, H., Bhandarkar, S., Matusik, W., & Torralba, A. (2016). Eye tracking for everyone. Proceedings of the IEEE conference on computer vision and pattern recognition (pp. 2176–2184). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CVPR.2016.239
Kruger, J. L., & Doherty, S. (2016). Measuring cognitive load in the presence of educational video: Towards a multimodal methodology. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.3084
Kulke, L. V., Atkinson, J., & Braddick, O. (2016). Neural differences between covert and overt attention studied using EEG with simultaneous remote eye tracking. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00592
Lai, H. Y., Saavedra-Pena, G., Sodini, C. G., Sze, V., & Heldt, T. (2019). Measuring saccade latency using smartphone cameras. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, 24(3), 885–897. https://doi.org/10.1109/jbhi.2019.2913846
Lai, M. L., Tsai, M. J., Yang, F. Y., Hsu, C. Y., Liu, T. C., Lee, S. W. Y., Lee, M. H., Chiou, G. L., Liang, J. C., & Tsai, C. C. (2013). A review of using eye-tracking technology in exploring learning from 2000 to 2012. Educational Research Review, 10, 90–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2013.10.001
*Laing, C. E. (2017). A perceptual advantage for onomatopoeia in early word learning: Evidence from eye-tracking. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 161, 32–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.03.017
Lavie, N. (1995). Perceptual load as a necessary condition for selective attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21(3), 451. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.21.3.451
*Law, F., 2nd., Mahr, T., Schneeberg, A., & Edwards, J. (2017). Vocabulary size and auditory word recognition in preschool children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 38(1), 89–125. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716416000126
*Li, M., Chen, Y., Wang, J., & Liu, T. (2020). Children’s attention toward cartoon executed photos. Annals of Tourism Research, 80, 102799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2019.102799
Liu, H. C., Lai, M. L., & Chuang, H. H. (2011). Using eye-tracking technology to investigate the redundant effect of multimedia web pages on viewers’ cognitive processes. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(6), 2410–2417. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.06.012
Loberg, O., Hautala, J., Hämäläinen, J. A., & Leppänen, P. H. (2019). Influence of reading skill and word length on fixation-related brain activity in school-aged children during natural reading. Vision Research, 165, 109–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2019.07.008
Lockhofen, D. E. L., & Mulert, C. (2021). Neurochemistry of visual attention. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 15, 643597. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.643597
Majaranta, P., & Bulling, A. (2014). Eye tracking and eye-based human–computer interaction. Advances in physiological computing (pp. 39–65). Springer.
Marcus, D. J., Karatekin, C., & Markiewicz, S. (2006). Oculomotor evidence of sequence learning on the serial reaction time task. Memory & Cognition, 34(2), 420–432. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193419
*McEwen, R. N., & Dube, A. (2015). Engaging or distracting: Children’s tablet computer use in education. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-47277-001
Mestres, E. T., & Pellicer-Sánchez, A. (2019). Young EFL learners’ processing of multimodal input: Examining learners’ eye movements. System, 80, 212–223. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.12.002
Moher, D., Liberati, A., Tetzlaff, J., Altman, D. G., & PRISMA Group. (2009). Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. Annals of Internal Medicine, 151(4), 264–269. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-151-4-200908180-00135
*Murray, L., Wegener, S., Wang, H. C., Parrila, R., & Castles, A. (2022). Children processing novel irregular and regular words during reading: An eye tracking study. Scientific Studies of Reading, 26(5), 417–431.
Miller, B. W. (2015). Using reading times and eye-movements to measure cognitive engagement. Educational Psychologist, 50(1), 31–42. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2015.1004068
*Miller, H. E., Kirkorian, H. L., & Simmering, V. R. (2020). Using eye-tracking to understand relations between visual attention and language in children’s spatial skills. Cognitive Psychology, 117, 101264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2019.101264
*Molina, A. I., Navarro, Ó., Ortega, M., & Lacruz, M. (2018). Evaluating multimedia learning materials in primary education using eye tracking. Computer Standards & Interfaces, 59, 45–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csi.2018.02.004
*Nazaruk, S. (2020). Diagnosis of the mathematical skills of children from polish kindergartens and its importance for geometric shape recognition. Early Childhood Education Journal, 48(4), 463–472. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-01005-8
Obaidellah, U., Al Haek, M., & Cheng, P. C. H. (2018). A survey on the usage of eye-tracking in computer programming. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 51(1), 1–58. https://doi.org/10.1145/3145904
O’Brien, H. L., Cairns, P., & Hall, M. (2018). A practical approach to measuring user engagement with the refined user engagement scale (UES) and new UES short form. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 112, 28–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2018.01.004
O’Brien, H. L., & Toms, E. G. (2008). What is user engagement? A conceptual framework for defining user engagement with technology. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(6), 938–955. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.20801
*Olsen, J. K., Ozgur, A. G., Sharma, K., & Johal, W. (2022). Leveraging eye tracking to understand children’s attention during game-based, tangible robotics activities. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 31, 100447.
*Pan, J., Liu, M., Li, H., & Yan, M. (2021). Chinese children benefit from alternating-color words in sentence reading. Reading and Writing, 34(2), 355–369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10067-9
*Papavlasopoulou, S., Sharma, K., Giannakos, M., & Jaccheri, L. (2017). Using eye-tracking to unveil differences between kids and teens in coding activities. In proceedings of the 2017 conference on interaction design and children (pp. 171–181). https://doi.org/10.1145/3078072.3079740
*Papavlasopoulou, S., Sharma, K., & Giannakos, M. N. (2018). How do you feel about learning to code? Investigating the effect of children’s attitudes towards coding using eye-tracking. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 17, 50–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2018.01.004
*Papavlasopoulou, S., Sharma, K., & Giannakos, M. N. (2020). Coding activities for children: Coupling eye-tracking with qualitative data to investigate gender differences. Computers in Human Behavior, 105, 105939. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.03.003
Park, S., Aksan, E., Zhang, X., & Hilliges, O. (2020). Towards end-to-end video-based eye-tracking. In A. Vedaldi, H. Bischof, T. Brox, & J. M. Frahm (Eds.), European conference on computer vision (pp. 747–763). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58610-2_44
Papoutsaki, A., Sangkloy, P., Laskey, J., Daskalova, N., Huang, J., Hays, J. (2016). Webgazer: Scalable webcam eye tracking using user interactions. In Proceedings of the twenty-fifth international joint conference on artificial intelligence (pp. 3839–3845).
*Pellicer-Sánchez, A., Conklin, K., & Vilkaitė-Lozdienė, L. (2021). The effect of pre-reading instruction on vocabulary learning: An investigation of L1 and L2 readers’ eye movements. Language Learning, 71(1), 162–203.
*Pellicer-Sánchez, A., Tragant, E., Conklin, K., Rodgers, M., Serrano, R., & Llanes, Á. (2020). Young learners’ processing of multimodal input and its impact on reading comprehension: An eye-tracking study. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 42(3), 577–598. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0272263120000091
*Pellicer-Sánchez, A., Tragant, E., Conklin, K., Rodgers, M., Llanes, A., & Serrano, R. (2018). L2 reading and reading-while-listening in multimodal learning conditions: An eye-tracking study. ELT Research Papers, 18(1), 1–28.
Peterson, M. S., Kramer, A. F., & Irwin, D. E. (2004). Covert shifts of attention precede involuntary eye movements. Perception & Psychophysics, 66(3), 398–405. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03194888
Poole, A., & Ball, L. J. (2006). Eye tracking in HCI and usability research. Encyclopedia of human computer interaction (pp. 211–219). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-59140-562-7.ch034
Rayner, K. (2009). Eye movements in reading: Models and data. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 2(5), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.16910/jemr.2.5.2
Rayner, K., Chace, K. H., Slattery, T. J., & Ashby, J. (2006). Eye movements as reflections of comprehension processes in reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10(3), 241–255. https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532799xssr1003_3
Reichle, E. D., Reineberg, A. E., & Schooler, J. W. (2010). Eye movements during mindless reading. Psychological Science, 21(9), 1300–1310.
Rueda, M. R., Fan, J., McCandliss, B. D., Halparin, J. D., Gruber, D. B., Lercari, L. P., & Posner, M. I. (2004). Development of attentional networks in childhood. Neuropsychologia, 42(8), 1029–1040. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2003.12.012
*Reuter, T., Borovsky, A., & Lew-Williams, C. (2019). Predict and redirect: Prediction errors support children’s word learning. Developmental Psychology, 55(8), 1656. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000754
Schindler, M., & Lilienthal, A. J. (2019). Domain-specific interpretation of eye tracking data: Towards a refined use of the eye-mind hypothesis for the field of geometry. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 101(1), 123–139. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-019-9878-z
*Shaked, K. B. Z., Shamir, A., & Vakil, E. (2020). An eye tracking study of digital text reading: a comparison between poor and typical readers. Reading and Writing. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10021-9
Sharafi, Z., Soh, Z., & Guéhéneuc, Y. G. (2015). A systematic literature review on the usage of eye-tracking in software engineering. Information and Software Technology, 67, 79–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2015.06.008
*Skrabankova, J., Popelka, S., & Beitlova, M. (2020). Students’ ability to work with graphs in physics studies related to three typical student groups. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 19(2), 298–316. https://doi.org/10.33225/jbse/20.19.298
Soluch, P., & Tarnowski, A. (2013). Eye-tracking methods and measures. In S. Grucza, M. Płużyczka, & J. Zając (Eds.), Translation studies and eye-tracking analysis (pp. 85–104). Peter Lang.
Sorden, S. D. (2012). The cognitive theory of multimedia learning. In B. Irby, G. H. Brown, R. Lara-Aiecio, & S. A. Jackson (Eds.), Handbook of educational theories (pp. 155–167). Information Age Publisher.
*Sprenger, P., & Benz, C. (2020). Children’s perception of structures when determining cardinality of sets—results of an eye-tracking study with 5-year-old children. ZDM, 52(4), 753–765. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-020-01137-x
*Stevenson, M. P., Dewhurst, R., Schilhab, T., & Bentsen, P. (2019). Cognitive restoration in children following exposure to nature: Evidence from the attention network task and mobile eye tracking. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 42. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00042
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research techniques. Thousand Oaks: Sage publications.
*Sun, H., Loh, J., & Charles Roberts, A. (2019). Motion and sound in animated storybooks for preschoolers’ visual attention and mandarin language learning: An eye-tracking study with bilingual children. AERA Open, 5(2), 2332858419848431.
Sweller, J. (2010). Cognitive load theory: Recent theoretical advances. In J. L. Plass, R. Moreno, & R. Brünken (Eds.), Cognitive load theory (pp. 29–47). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511844744.004
*Tamási, K., McKean, C., Gafos, A., & Höhle, B. (2019). Children’s gradient sensitivity to phonological mismatch: considering the dynamics of looking behavior and pupil dilation. Journal of Child Language, 46(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000918000259
*Takacs, Z. K., & Bus, A. G. (2016). Benefits of motion in animated storybooks for children’s visual attention and story comprehension: An eye-tracking study. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1591. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01591
*Takacs, Z. K., & Bus, A. G. (2018). How pictures in picture storybooks support young children’s story comprehension: An eye-tracking experiment. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 174, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.04.013
*Tiffin-Richards, S. P., & Schroeder, S. (2015). Word length and frequency effects on children’s eye movements during silent reading. Vision Research, 113, 33–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.visres.2015.05.008
*Tribushinina, E., & Mak, W. M. (2016). Three-year-olds can predict a noun based on an attributive adjective: evidence from eye-tracking. Journal of Child Language, 43(2), 425–441. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000915000173
*Trecca, F., Bleses, D., Madsen, T. O., & Christiansen, M. H. (2018). Does sound structure affect word learning? An eye-tracking study of Danish learning toddlers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 167, 180–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2017.10.011
Valenti, R., Staiano, J., Sebe, N., & Gevers, T. (2009). Webcam-based visual gaze estimation. International conference on image analysis and processing (pp. 662–671). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04146-4_71
Valliappan, N., Dai, N., Steinberg, E., et al. (2020). Accelerating eye movement research via accurate and affordable smartphone eye tracking. Nature Communications, 11, 4553. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18360-5
Vakil, E., Bloch, A., & Cohen, H. (2017). Anticipation measures of sequence learning: manual versus oculomotor versions of the serial reaction time task. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(3), 579–589.
Van der Stigchel, S., Meeter, M., & Theeuwes, J. (2006). Eye movement trajectories and what they tell us. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 30(5), 666–679. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2005.12.001
Van’t Noordende, J. E., van Hoogmoed, A. H., Schot, W. D., & Kroesbergen, E. H. (2016). Number line estimation strategies in children with mathematical learning difficulties measured by eye tracking. Psychological Research Psychologische Forschung, 80(3), 368–378. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-015-0736-z
Van Gog, T., Kester, L., Nievelstein, F., Giesbers, B., & Paas, F. (2009). Uncovering cognitive processes: Different techniques that can contribute to cognitive load research and instruction. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(2), 325–331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2008.12.021
van Gog, T., & Jarodzka, H. (2013). Eye tracking as a tool to study and enhance cognitive and metacognitive processes in computer-based learning environments. International handbook of metacognition and learning technologies (pp. 143–156). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-5546-3_10
van Viersen, S., Protopapas, A., Georgiou, G. K., Parrila, R., Ziaka, L., & de Jong, P. F. (2022). Lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and advanced readers of Dutch: An eye-tracking study. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75(6), 1135–1154.
*Valleau, M. J., Konishi, H., Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Arunachalam, S. (2018). An eye-tracking study of receptive verb knowledge in toddlers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61(12), 2917–2933.
*Verdine, B. N., Bunger, A., Athanasopoulou, A., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2017). Shape up: An eye-tracking study of preschoolers’ shape name processing and spatial development. Developmental Psychology, 53(10), 1869. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000384
Wedel, M. (2015). Attention research in marketing: A review of eye-tracking studies. In J. M. Fawcett, E. F. Risko, & A. Kingstone (Eds.), The handbook of attention (pp. 569–588). Boston Review.
*Weighall, A. R., Henderson, L. M., Barr, D. J., Cairney, S. A., & Gaskell, M. G. (2017). Eye-tracking the time-course of novel word learning and lexical competition in adults and children. Brain and Language, 167, 13–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2016.07.010
Whittemore, R., & Knafl, K. (2005). The integrative review: Updated methodology. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 52(5), 546–553. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2005.03621.x
Wu, C. J., & Liu, C. Y. (2022). Refined use of the eye-mind hypothesis for scientific argumentation using multiple representations. Instructional Science, 50(4), 551–569. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-022-09581-w
*Wu, C. J., Liu, C. Y., Yang, C. H., & Jian, Y. C. (2020). Eye-movements reveal children’s deliberative thinking and predict performance on arithmetic word problems. European Journal of Psychology of Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-020-00461-w
Xu, P., Ehinger, K. A., Zhang, Y., Finkelstein, A., Kulkarni, S. R., & Xiao, J. (2015). Turkergaze: Crowdsourcing saliency with webcam based eye tracking. Preprint retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/1504.06755
*Yan, Z., Pei, M., & Su, Y. (2017). Children’s empathy and their perception and evaluation of facial pain expression: An eye tracking study. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 2284. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02284
Yang, S. N., & McConkie, G. W. (2001). Eye movements during reading: A theory of saccade initiation times. Vision Research, 41(25–26), 3567–3585. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0042-6989(01)00025-6
*Yu, C., Suanda, S. H., & Smith, L. B. (2019). Infant sustained attention but not joint attention to objects at 9 months predicts vocabulary at 12 and 15 months. Developmental Science, 22(1), e12735. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12735
Zagermann, J., Pfeil, U., & Reiterer, H. (2016). Measuring cognitive load using eye tracking technology in visual computing. In Proceedings of the sixth workshop on beyond time and errors on novel evaluation methods for visualization (pp. 78–85). https://doi.org/10.1145/2993901.2993908
*Zargar, E., Adams, A. M., & Connor, C. M. (2020). The relations between children’s comprehension monitoring and their reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge: An eye-movement study. Reading and Writing, 33(3), 511–545. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-019-09966-3
*Zawoyski, A. M., & Ardoin, S. P. (2019). Using eye-tracking technology to examine the impact of question format on reading behavior in elementary students. School Psychology Review, 48(4), 320–332. https://doi.org/10.17105/SPR-2018-0014.V48-4
Zekveld, A. A., Heslenfeld, D. J., Johnsrude, I. S., Versfeld, N. J., & Kramer, S. E. (2014). The eye as a window to the listening brain: Neural correlates of pupil size as a measure of cognitive listening load. NeuroImage, 101, 76–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.06.069
Zhang, C., Yao, R., & Cai, J. (2018). Efficient eye typing with 9-direction gaze estimation. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 77(15), 19679–19696. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-017-5426-y
*Zhou, P., Zhan, L., & Ma, H. (2019). Predictive language processing in preschool children with autism spectrum disorder: An eye-tracking study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 48(2), 431–452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-018-9612-5
Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by the US Department of Education’s Education Innovation and Research program [U411C190179].
Funding
US Department of Education (Grant No. U411C190179).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Ke, F., Liu, R., Sokolikj, Z. et al. Using eye-tracking in education: review of empirical research and technology. Education Tech Research Dev (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10342-4
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-024-10342-4