RUME 28
2026
Alexandria, Virginia
Exploring Attentive Behavior While Reading Mathematics Textbooks
Page: 311
Textbooks remain central in undergraduate STEM education, yet little is known about how readers distribute attention across the diverse elements of extended mathematical texts. This study investigates how mathematics majors, non-mathematics STEM faculty, and non-math majors read a four-page excerpt from a standard calculus textbook. Using eye-tracking, we compared participants’ attention to expository prose, worked examples, figures, and a highlighted formula. Exploratory analyses suggested differences between the groups’ distributions of attention. However, a compositional data analysis did not reveal statistically significant group-level differences. These findings point to the importance of disciplinary literacy frameworks in interpreting attention patterns and raise questions about how readers’ identities shape engagement with mathematics texts.