Analysis of Students’ Oculomotor Activity Observed when Reading from the PC Screen

Abstract

Introduction. This paper analyzes the problem of formation of educational Internet resources. Despite numerous works concerning the importance of using information technologies in the education, the issue of its rational organization remains understudied. The purpose of the article is to analyze what patterns are observed when students read educational information from the screen, and how these patterns can be used to create educational Internet resources. Materials and Methods. To study the interaction of students with educational information on the screen, the authors used the method of oculography. The results were processed using the BeGaze and IBM SPSS Statistics 22 programs. In total 100 respondents participated in the experiment, 50 of which were trained in the natural sciences, 50 – in the humanities. Results. It is determined that the presence of media text influences the oculomotor activity of students: students commit fewer fixations and saccades, the average duration of saccades increases, the value of the Scanpath Length indicator decreases. It was revealed that the orientation of training forms strategies for working with information on the screen: students of natural sciences read texts longer, blink less often; they have a higher Scanpath Length value. When forming educational Internet resources, the developer should take into account the students’ specialisms with reference to e-material. It should also be borne in mind that the presence of images on educational Internet pages is perceived by students as a simplifying factor for completing the cognitive task of reading, but students practically do not pay attention to the images themselves. This may be attributed to the specificity of the learning process, when their main focus is on written texts acquisition. Discussion and Conclusion. The results of the study open a new direction in the study of the problem of rational organization of the student's learning process using technical devices and may be of interest to developers of educational Internet resources, as well as practicing teachers.