Data_Sheet_1_Analysis of eye movements to study drawing in the context of vector fields.pdf

Research has shown that visual representations can substantially enhance the learning and understanding of STEM concepts; despite this, students tend to struggle in using them fluently and consistently. Consequently, educators advocate for explicit instructions that support the coordination of multiple representations, especially when concepts become more abstract and complex. For recent years, the drawing (or sketching) technique has received increasing attention. Theoretical considerations and prior research suggest that drawing has the potential to support knowledge construction and to provide cognitive relief. In this article, we present two studies that investigate the impact of drawing activities in a multi-representational, instruction-based learning scenario from physics, more precisely, in the context of vector fields. Further, mobile and remote eye tracking was used to record students' gaze behavior in addition to monitoring indicators of performance and cognitive load. Here, eye movements provide information about cognitive processes during the completion of the instruction, on the one hand, and during subsequent problem solving, on the other hand. Comparisons of a treatment group instructed with drawing activities and a control group instructed without drawing activities revealed significant differences in students' perceived cognitive load (p = 0.02, d = 0.47 and p = 0.0045, d = 0.37), as well as their response accuracy (p = 0.02, d = 0.51) and their response confidence (p = 0.02, d = 0.55 and p = 0.004, d = 0.64) during assessment after instruction (N = 84). Moreover, students instructed with drawing activities were found to distribute more visual attention to important parts of the instruction (vector field diagram and instructional text, N = 32) compared to the control group and, further, showed effective, expert-like behaviors during subsequent problem solving (N = 53). Finally, as a contribution to current trends in eye-tracking research, the application of mobile and remote eye-tracking in drawing-based learning and assessment scenarios is compared and critically discussed.

研究表明，视觉表征能够显著提升对STEM概念的习得与理解；尽管如此，学生在流畅且持续地运用这些表征方面往往感到困扰。因此，教育工作者提倡明确的指导方针，以支持多种表征之间的协调，尤其是在概念日益抽象和复杂的情况下。近年来，绘图（或草图绘制）技术受到了越来越多的关注。理论上的考虑及先前的研究表明，绘图具有支持知识构建和提供认知缓解的潜力。在本研究中，我们提出了两项研究，旨在探讨在多表征、基于指导的学习场景中，尤其是矢量场这一物理学科背景下，绘图活动的影响。此外，除了监测表现和认知负荷的指标外，我们还利用移动和远程眼动追踪技术记录了学生的注视行为。在此，眼动提供了关于学生在完成指导过程中的认知过程，以及随后问题解决时的认知过程的信息。将接受绘图活动指导的治疗组和未接受绘图活动指导的控制组进行比较，结果显示，两组学生在指导后的评估中感知到的认知负荷（p = 0.02，d = 0.47 和 p = 0.0045，d = 0.37）、回答的准确性（p = 0.02，d = 0.51）以及回答的自信心（p = 0.02，d = 0.55 和 p = 0.004，d = 0.64）存在显著差异（N = 84）。此外，接受绘图活动指导的学生相较于控制组，在指导过程中更倾向于分配更多的视觉注意力到指令的重要部分（矢量场图和指导性文本，N = 32），并且在后续的问题解决过程中表现出有效且类似专家的行为（N = 53）。最后，作为对当前眼动追踪研究趋势的贡献，本文对比并批判性地讨论了移动和远程眼动追踪在基于绘图的学习和评估场景中的应用。