PROCEEDINGS OF THE 18TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2015
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Students’ visual attention while answering graphically-based Fundamental Theorem of Calculus questions
Page: 1011
As part of work on student understanding of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (FTC) and definite integrals, we incorporated a technique known as eye tracking to investigate how students attribute their visual attention while answering graphically-based questions. The direction and duration of eye gaze of 17 students was recorded in real time. We analyzed the total proportion of time spent on various question domains (lexicons, equations & symbols, graphs, and question options) as well as on various relevant and irrelevant features of the graphs. We found that the students who responded correctly spent more time on relevant graphical features, whereas those responded incorrectly spent more time on irrelevant graphical features. We also found that student visual attribution depends on types of representations and notations provided in the questions. Most of the eye-tracking results corroborate previously reported written and interview results on student application of the FTC across the mathematics-physics interface.