for their valuable work with the data collection and data management.

In previous eye movement research on word length effects, spatial width has been confounded with the number of letters. McDonald (2006) unconfounded these factors by rendering all words in sentences in constant spatial width. In the present study, the Arial font with proportional letter spacing was used for varying the number of letters while equating for spatial width, while the Courier font with monospaced letter spacing was used to measure the contribution of spatial width to the observed word length effect. Number of letters in words affected single fixation duration on target words, whereas words' spatial width determined fixation locations in words and the probability of skipping a word. The results support the existence of distinct subsystems for deciding where and when to move eyes in text (Rayner & McConkie, 1976). The number-of-letters effect in fixation duration may be explained by visual acuity, visual crowding, and/or serial letter processing.

23Evaluating search engine results is a crucial skill for finding relevant information on the 24 Internet. In this study, we used eye-tracking technology to examine search result evaluation 25 strategies adopted by sixth-grade students (N = 36). Students completed 10 search tasks 26 where they were asked to select a search result among four options that would help them to 27 answer the given task. To identify which information students used to evaluate search results, 28 we manipulated the relevancy of the search result's title, URL, and snippet components. We 29 then analyzed the selection of search results as well as looking probabilities on the search 30 result components. The results revealed that during first-pass inspection, students read the 31 search engine page by first looking at the title of a search result. If the title was relevant, the 32 probability of looking at the snippet of the search result increased. During second-pass 33 inspection, there was a high probability of students focusing on the most promising search 34 result by inspecting all of its components before making their selection. A cluster analysis 35 revealed three viewing strategies: half of the students looked mainly at the titles and snippets; 36 one-third with high probability examined all components; and one-sixth mainly focused on 37 titles, leading to more frequent errors in search result selection. The results indicate that 38 students generally made a flexible use of both eliminative and confirmatory evaluation 39 strategies when reading Internet search results, while some seemed to not pay attention to 40 snippet and URL components of the search results.41

Influence of reading skill and word length on fixation-related brain activity in schoolaged children during natural reading

Computerized game-based assessment (GBA) system for screening reading difficulties may provide substantial time and cost benefits over traditional paper-and-pencil assessment while providing means also to individually adapt learning content in educational games. To study the reliability and validity of a GBA system to identify struggling readers performing below a standard deviation from mean in paper-and-pencil test either in raw scores and grade-normative scores, a large-scale study with first to fourth grade students ( N = 723) was conducted, where GBA was administrated as a group test by tablet devices. Overall, the results indicated that the GBA can be successfully used to identify students with reading difficulties with acceptable reliability. Although the reliability of the results were at a very good level overall, the identification was even better in the reading fluency than in reading accuracy and in terms of raw scores than in grade-normative scores. These findings are the first to demonstrate the promise of GBA in assessing reading skills reliably and in a cost-efficient manner in classrooms. Furthermore, the developed GBA is directly applicable to an educational game for successfully supporting reading development of learners with varying levels of reading skill.