The Analysis Of Teacher's Eye Gaze And Its Effects On Learning In Real Classroom

Teachers are the foundation of teaching,and teachers' professional development has becoming a hot topic in education area.Classroom is the main place for teaching,so the study of teachers in classroom teaching is necessary.In real classroom,teachers' eye gaze has a positive influence on learning:promoting interaction and communication,guiding learners' visual attention,activating emotional reactions,however,empirical research on the influence of teachers' eye gaze is relatively lacking.In addition,recent researches showed that there were differences between expert teachers and non-expert teachers in teaching,but the results were inconsistent.Therefore,based on the social interaction theory and social attention effect,this study used portable eye-tracking technology to explore the teachers' eye gaze in real classroom and its effects on learners' learning.Quasi-experimental research method is adopted to understand teachers' eye gaze in classroom teaching.This study explored the teachers' eye gaze through cluster analysis,as well as the relationship between teachers' eye gaze and their expertise.Then,the effects of teachers' eye gaze on learners' classroom involvement,learning experience and satisfaction and its effects mechanism was investigated.Eleven university teachers were recruited to conduct cluster analysis on the 10-minute effective eye movement data of teachers in classroom lecture.To understand learners' classroom engagement,learning experience and learning satisfaction,a questionnaire survey was conducted.The results showed that:(1)the eye movement data of teachers can be clustered into two gaze patterns:"learner centered" and "even allocation";(2)the non-expert teachers adopted the "learner centered" gaze pattern,while the expert adopted the "even allocation"pattern;(3)learners' classroom involvement,learning experience and satisfaction with teaching content and teacher-student interaction in the "even allocation" group were significantly higher than those in the "learner centered" group;(4)learning experience played a mediating role between the teachers' eye gaze,classroom involvement and learning satisfaction.Based on the above results,the following conclusions can be draw:(1)In the process of lecture,the non-expert pay more attention to the learners,while more experienced expert teachers can evenly distribute the attention.(2)Well-allocation of teachers' eye gaze is beneficial to the improvement of learners' classroom involvement,learning experience and satisfaction.Moreover,teachers' eye gaze can promote learners'classroom involvement and learning satisfaction by improving learning experience.This study innovatively adopted cluster analysis method to explore teachers' eye gaze and its effects on learning.It was found that teachers' gaze was related to their expertise and reasonable allocation of attention had a positive promoting effect on learners.It not only enriched the research on teachers' eye gaze,but also provided empirical support for teachers' attention allocation in classroom teaching,which can be helpful to teachers' professional development.