The Relation Between Teacher-Student Eye Contact and Teachers’ Interpersonal Behavior During Group Work: a Multiple-Person Gaze-Tracking Case Study in Secondary Mathematics Education

Abstract

Reciprocal eye contact is a significant part of human interaction, but its role in classroom interaction has remained unexplored, mostly due to methodological issues. A novel approach in educational science, multiple-person mobile gaze-tracking, allows us to gather data on these momentary processes of nonverbal interaction. The current mixedmethod case study investigates the role of teacher-student eye contact in interpersonal classroom interaction using this methodological approach from three mathematics lessons. We combined gaze-tracking data with classroom videos, which we analyzed with continuous coding of teachers' interpersonal behavior. Our results show that teacher communion and agency affect the frequency and durations of teachers and students' gazes at each other. Students tend to gaze their teachers more during high teacher communion and low agency, but qualitative and quantitative differences between the teachers and their classes emerged as well. To conclude, the formation of eye contacts is situational and affected by momentary interpersonal changes as well as the qualities of teacher-student interactions.

Connecting Judgment Process and Accuracy of Student Teachers: Differences in Observation and Student Engagement Cues to Assess Student Characteristics

“…Nevertheless, some studies have already provided initial evidence concerning teachers' observation behavior. This evidence comes primarily in the form of comparisons between experienced and student teachers in the context of professional vision (Stürmer et al, 2017;Wyss et al, 2020), classroom management (van den Bogert et al, 2014;Cortina et al, 2015;Wolff et al, 2016), and teacher-student interactions (McIntyre et al, 2017(McIntyre et al, , 2019McIntyre and Foulsham, 2018;Haataja et al, 2019Haataja et al, , 2020Seidel et al, 2020). Overall, in comparison with student teachers, experienced teachers seem to show a more knowledge-driven pattern of eye movement, which represents selective viewing and fast information processing.…”

Investigating Visual Perception in Teaching and Learning with Advanced Eye-Tracking Methodologies: Rewards and Challenges of an Innovative Research Paradigm

“…see Gergle and Clark 2011;Jermann et al 2011;Richardson et al 2007). Even more importantly, the availability of mobile eye-tracking glasses in the last years now allows for the study of communicational processes in naturalistic and unconstrained environments such as tutoring and small group scaffolding (see Haataja et al 2020) and even more complex one-to-many communication settings as in whole-class instruction. Hence, with regard to professional vision and teacher expertise, a major promise of mobile eye-tracking technology is to shed light on how expert teachers as compared with novices competently use professional vision as a pedagogical and communicational means.…”

“…Hence, with regard to professional vision and teacher expertise, a major promise of mobile eye-tracking technology is to shed light on how expert teachers as compared with novices competently use professional vision as a pedagogical and communicational means. This includes, for example, teachers' monitoring and directing of students' attention during whole-class instruction, the non-verbal grounding of their instructional contributions (e.g., throwing a questioning gaze on the students, see Clark and Brennan 1991), and the socio-emotional regulation of interpersonal relationships (using gaze to signal emotional attachment or distance, see Haataja et al 2020) 4 Eye-tracking technology may further be fruitfully applied to provide objective measures for certain aspects of instructional quality. Researchers in the domain of educational effectiveness have suggested conceptualizations of instructional quality that converge on three core dimensions (Hamre et al 2013;Klieme et al 2009): (a) classroom management that comprises a teacher's ability to successfully prevent and cope with disruptive behavior of students in order to create a positive work environment that maximizes students' time on task (Fauth et al 2014a); (b) cognitive activation that denotes a teacher's ability to engage students in productive knowledge construction activities, for example, by providing them with challenging tasks or by asking thought-provoking questions.…”

“…Haataja, Salonen, Laine, Toivanen, and Hannula (this issue) have a research background in the psychology of mathematics education. In their naturalistic eye-tracking study, Haataja et al (2020) employed multiple-person mobile eye-tracking to investigate how teachers and students used non-verbal communication through eye contact to coordinate their individual perspectives and regulate their interpersonal relationships. The study is interesting and innovative because the researchers tapped into the micro-level regulation processes of social interaction during classroom instruction by assessing the interactants' non-verbal gaze behavior and the situationally varying qualities of their interpersonal relationships (i.e., agency and communion, see Kiesler 1983) simultaneously.…”

“…Whereas Haataja et al (2020) employed mobile eye-tracking glasses to investigate how teachers and students used their gaze behavior to regulate agency and communion during mathematics problem-solving, Rosengrant, Hearrington, and O'Brien (this issue) applied a mobile eye-tracker to study students' on-task vigilance and vigilance decrement in teachercentered instruction within higher-education classrooms. Rosengrant et al's goal was to empirically examine a widespread educational myth, according to which students' ability to follow a lecture attentively typically depletes after only 15 to 20 min (e.g., Chaney 2005).…”