Teachers' gaze over space and time in a real-world classroom

Reading students’ faces and their body language, checking their worksheets, and keeping eye contact is a key trait of teacher competence. The new technology of mobile eye-tracking provides researchers with possibilities to explore teaching from the viewpoint of teacher gaze, but also introduces many...

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Main Authors: Zuzana Smidekova, Miroslav Janik, Eva Minarikova, Kenneth Holmqvist
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-09-01
Series:Journal of Eye Movement Research
Subjects:
Online Access:https://bop.unibe.ch/JEMR/article/view/6713
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author Zuzana Smidekova
Miroslav Janik
Eva Minarikova
Kenneth Holmqvist
author_facet Zuzana Smidekova
Miroslav Janik
Eva Minarikova
Kenneth Holmqvist
author_sort Zuzana Smidekova
collection DOAJ
description Reading students’ faces and their body language, checking their worksheets, and keeping eye contact is a key trait of teacher competence. The new technology of mobile eye-tracking provides researchers with possibilities to explore teaching from the viewpoint of teacher gaze, but also introduces many new method questions. This study had the primary aim to investigate teachers´ attention distribution over space: the number and durations of several types of their gazes, and how their gaze depends on the factors of students´ gender, achievement, and position in the classroom. Results show that teacher gaze was distributed unevenly across both space and time. Teachers looked at the most-watched students 3-8 times more often than at the least-watched ones. Students sitting in the first row and the middle section received significantly more gaze than those sitting outside this zone. All three teachers made more single gaze visits - looking at the students but making no eye contact - than mutual gazes or student material gazes. The three teachers’ gaze distribution also varied substantially from lesson to lesson. Our results are important for understanding teacher behavior in real classrooms, but also point to the relevance of appropriate method design in future classroom studies with eye-tracking.
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spelling doaj-art-6aaf01a84cb74ffeac228a17ade19eef2025-08-20T01:51:07ZengMDPI AGJournal of Eye Movement Research1995-86922020-09-0113410.16910/jemr.13.4.1Teachers' gaze over space and time in a real-world classroomZuzana Smidekova0Miroslav Janik1Eva Minarikova2Kenneth HolmqvistMasaryk UniversityMasaryk UniversityMasaryk UniversityReading students’ faces and their body language, checking their worksheets, and keeping eye contact is a key trait of teacher competence. The new technology of mobile eye-tracking provides researchers with possibilities to explore teaching from the viewpoint of teacher gaze, but also introduces many new method questions. This study had the primary aim to investigate teachers´ attention distribution over space: the number and durations of several types of their gazes, and how their gaze depends on the factors of students´ gender, achievement, and position in the classroom. Results show that teacher gaze was distributed unevenly across both space and time. Teachers looked at the most-watched students 3-8 times more often than at the least-watched ones. Students sitting in the first row and the middle section received significantly more gaze than those sitting outside this zone. All three teachers made more single gaze visits - looking at the students but making no eye contact - than mutual gazes or student material gazes. The three teachers’ gaze distribution also varied substantially from lesson to lesson. Our results are important for understanding teacher behavior in real classrooms, but also point to the relevance of appropriate method design in future classroom studies with eye-tracking.https://bop.unibe.ch/JEMR/article/view/6713Eye movementeye trackingattentionregion of interestindividual differencesgaze
spellingShingle Zuzana Smidekova
Miroslav Janik
Eva Minarikova
Kenneth Holmqvist
Teachers' gaze over space and time in a real-world classroom
Journal of Eye Movement Research
Eye movement
eye tracking
attention
region of interest
individual differences
gaze
title Teachers' gaze over space and time in a real-world classroom
title_full Teachers' gaze over space and time in a real-world classroom
title_fullStr Teachers' gaze over space and time in a real-world classroom
title_full_unstemmed Teachers' gaze over space and time in a real-world classroom
title_short Teachers' gaze over space and time in a real-world classroom
title_sort teachers gaze over space and time in a real world classroom
topic Eye movement
eye tracking
attention
region of interest
individual differences
gaze
url https://bop.unibe.ch/JEMR/article/view/6713
work_keys_str_mv AT zuzanasmidekova teachersgazeoverspaceandtimeinarealworldclassroom
AT miroslavjanik teachersgazeoverspaceandtimeinarealworldclassroom
AT evaminarikova teachersgazeoverspaceandtimeinarealworldclassroom
AT kennethholmqvist teachersgazeoverspaceandtimeinarealworldclassroom