Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering Problems

Dynamic biological processes, such as intracellular signaling pathways, commonly are taught in science courses using static representations of individual steps in the pathway. As a result, students often memorize these steps for examination purposes, but fail to appreciate either the cascade nature...

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Main Authors: Hui Tang, Elizabeth Day, Lisa Kendhammer, James N Moore, Scott A Brown, Norbert J Pienta
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2016-05-01
Series:Journal of Eye Movement Research
Subjects:
Online Access:https://bop.unibe.ch/JEMR/article/view/2521
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author Hui Tang
Elizabeth Day
Lisa Kendhammer
James N Moore
Scott A Brown
Norbert J Pienta
author_facet Hui Tang
Elizabeth Day
Lisa Kendhammer
James N Moore
Scott A Brown
Norbert J Pienta
author_sort Hui Tang
collection DOAJ
description Dynamic biological processes, such as intracellular signaling pathways, commonly are taught in science courses using static representations of individual steps in the pathway. As a result, students often memorize these steps for examination purposes, but fail to appreciate either the cascade nature of the pathway. In this study, we compared eye movement patterns for students who correctly ordered the components of an important pathway responsible for vasoconstriction against those who did not. Similarly, we compared the patterns of students who learned the material using three dimensional (3-D) animations previously associated with improved student understanding of this pathway against those who learned the material using static images extracted from those animations. For two of the three ordering problems, students with higher scores had shorter total fixation duration when ordering the components and spent less time (fixating) in the planning and solving phases of the problem-solving process. This finding was supported by the scanpath patterns that demonstrated that students who correctly solved the problems used more efficient problem-solving strategies.
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publishDate 2016-05-01
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spelling doaj-art-4c8c63f4c46c4f9a834b33ebefb130f52025-08-20T02:56:45ZengMDPI AGJournal of Eye Movement Research1995-86922016-05-019310.16910/jemr.9.3.6Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering ProblemsHui Tang0Elizabeth Day1Lisa Kendhammer2James N Moore3Scott A Brown4Norbert J Pienta5The University of GeorgiaThe University of GeorgiaThe University of GeorgiaThe University of GeorgiaThe University of GeorgiaThe University of GeorgiaDynamic biological processes, such as intracellular signaling pathways, commonly are taught in science courses using static representations of individual steps in the pathway. As a result, students often memorize these steps for examination purposes, but fail to appreciate either the cascade nature of the pathway. In this study, we compared eye movement patterns for students who correctly ordered the components of an important pathway responsible for vasoconstriction against those who did not. Similarly, we compared the patterns of students who learned the material using three dimensional (3-D) animations previously associated with improved student understanding of this pathway against those who learned the material using static images extracted from those animations. For two of the three ordering problems, students with higher scores had shorter total fixation duration when ordering the components and spent less time (fixating) in the planning and solving phases of the problem-solving process. This finding was supported by the scanpath patterns that demonstrated that students who correctly solved the problems used more efficient problem-solving strategies.https://bop.unibe.ch/JEMR/article/view/2521Eye-trackingproblem-solvingscanpathscience ordering problems
spellingShingle Hui Tang
Elizabeth Day
Lisa Kendhammer
James N Moore
Scott A Brown
Norbert J Pienta
Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering Problems
Journal of Eye Movement Research
Eye-tracking
problem-solving
scanpath
science ordering problems
title Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering Problems
title_full Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering Problems
title_fullStr Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering Problems
title_full_unstemmed Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering Problems
title_short Eye Movement Patterns in Solving Science Ordering Problems
title_sort eye movement patterns in solving science ordering problems
topic Eye-tracking
problem-solving
scanpath
science ordering problems
url https://bop.unibe.ch/JEMR/article/view/2521
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AT jamesnmoore eyemovementpatternsinsolvingscienceorderingproblems
AT scottabrown eyemovementpatternsinsolvingscienceorderingproblems
AT norbertjpienta eyemovementpatternsinsolvingscienceorderingproblems