Documentation of reading activities in distance education with the use of the eye tracking technique

Abstract

The article presents the procedures and results of the use of the eye tracking technique in two studies conducted with college students in a test laboratory to map their navigation trajectories and online reading practices during their study activities. In Study 1, the technique was used to collect data while undergraduate students performed real course activities in the computer. In this case, the mapping covered the reading of texts in the learning management system and on the internet. Experimental Study 2 allowed documenting the navigation and reading processes of 30 undergraduate students when participating in virtual forums using three different interfaces. The collection, recording each participant's eye movement on the computer screen at intervals of 30 milliseconds on average, generated detailed accurate data. This allowed us to visualize and describe the movements and times of fixation and eye jumping through the use of specific data processing software. The results indicated that the participants practiced different ways of reading the texts and hypertexts according to their knowledge needs for the activities performed. In addition to the practice of linear reading of traditional texts, skimming and scanning actions were documented in the hypertexts and pages accessed, without registering undesirable negative effects to the objectives sought by the participants in most actions.