Eye-tracking Technology and Data-mining Techniques used for a Behavioral Analysis of Adults engaged in Learning Processes

We present a protocol for the behavioral analysis of 15 to 70 year old adults engaged in different processes. Undertaking tasks assigned for self-regulated learning. The participants, university teachers and students, and others from the University of Experience, were monitored with eye tracking devices and the data were analyzed with data mining techniques.

This protocol was performed in compliance with the procedural regulations of the bioethical committee of the University of Burgos, Spain. In this research, there were two investigation questions ask. Research question one, will there be significant differences in the learning results and in the ocular fixation parameters between students and expert versus non-expert teachers in art history, differentiating students with official degrees versus students with non-official degrees, University of Experience adult education?

And research question two:Will clusters of each participant with learning results and ocular fixation parameters coincide with the type of participants, students with official degrees, students with non-official degrees, University of Experience adult education, and teachers? Participant recruitment. Recruit participants from among a group of adults within two environments, students and teacher, with an age rank of 18 to 70 years old in the environment of higher education, formal and non-formal education.

Include participant with normal or corrected to normal vision and hearing. Exclude participant with neurological, psychiatric, and sleep disorders, disability related to educational special needs, perceptual difficulties, impaired sight and hearing, and cognitive disabilities. In this study, we worked in a definitive sample amounted to 39 participant, six student from the University of Experience.

One participant was excluded in the category of student from the University of Experience because of visual difficulties. 25 university professors in the discipline of health science, engineering, and history and heritage, and nine undergraduate and master's students following courses in health science, engineering, and history and heritage. Data collection, obtain informed consent.

Before the test, inform each participant of the aim of the study and the collection, treatment and storage of their data. The agreement of each participant is given by signing the informed consent form. Then, before starting the task, the interviewer, an expert in the field, passes a questionnaire about question on age, gender, occupation, and prior knowledge of the subject matter.

In this case, the origin and historical development of monasteries in Europe. Experimental procedure.Calibration. Inform the participant about how eye tracking technology works, and how the information will be collected and recorded and calibrated.

It is explained to the participant that a valid desk require proper positioning. To do so, the participant has to sit at a certain distance, 45 to 60 centimeters from the monitor. The distance will depend on the height of the participant, lower the height, the shorter the distance.

The participant is informed that a series of points will appear on the cardinal point of the screen, and that each time a point appears, the participant must observe it with his eyes. Take the calibration setting. Performing the learning task.

Explain the contents of the task to the participant. The learning task consists of the explanation of the origin of monasteries in Europe. The assignment is presented in a video voiceover using SRL methodology.

The information is presented through auditory and visual channels, including written text and images. Watch the video clip. Performing the crossword puzzle on a Moodle based virtual platform.

Data analysis. Choose the Area Of Interest, AOI. AOIs are defined in the video and are divided into AOIs that contain relevant information versus AOIs that include non-relevant information.

Extract the database relating to the parameters for AOIs fixations. Import the database, including a statistical processing software package, and select the option Analyze, and then Classify, follow by the option K-Means Cluster. Then select cross table in the statistical software package, for example SPSS, followed by the ANOVA option, to analyze the differences between the participant.

Perform a visualization analysis of the data. Extract the data of the parameters of detailed statistics and make the statistical analysis. Personalized learning proposals.

Perform an intervention program to improve learning outcomes among the participants detected in the cluster analysis due to their lower scores. Representative results. 36 participants recruited for the present study were from three groups of adult students from the University of Experience, university professors, and undergraduate and master's degree students with age ranging between 22 and 69 years old.

The protocol was tested over 20 months at the University of Burgos. The gaze position parameters of the fixation were analyzed. The group of men and women in each of the participating group, University of Experience student, university teacher, and graduate and masters students, each completed the task in different ways.

No significant differences were found in any of the fixation parameters, but a trend towards differences for fixation average pupil size Y, fixation and average pupil diameter, and fixation dispersion X was noted, although with low effect values. Then the key means clusters was applied to study whether there were different groupings in the initial research group, with respect to the results in the parameters of fixation position, previous knowledge, and crossword puzzle results. Three clusters were found.

Also a group table was prepared between the values of cluster of a group membership assigned to each participant with respect to the category type of participant, University of Experience student, university professors, and university students. Each shows the position of participants within the cluster with respect to the three groups for the fixation position parameters. Significant differences were found depending on the background knowledge, variable in Diversion Duration 1.

Analyzing the input, duel, and output time for each stimulus inserted in each AOI. It can therefore be concluded that the way of entering, remaining, and exiting in the different AOIs was different depending on the variable participant group during the initial phase of information access. Differences were also found in the average fixation duration parameters.

Longer fixations refer to the participants spending more time analyzing and interpreting the information content within the different AOIs. Bonferroni means different test was applied to establish group membership, with which it was established that they were between the group University of Experience students and the group of university professors. The means were higher from group one, University of Experience students, where participant spend more time analyzing and interpreting the AOIs during the data entry phase.

Based on the result found in this study, the development of a personalized learning program was proposed to improve task resolution learning outcomes. In this study, the program will focus on the reinforcement of the concept worked on in the video, for which an extension and specification of the concepts will be made. The results obtained in this data analysis give information to the teacher to adjust the presentation of the task and even the characteristics of each learner or group of learners.Conclusions.

The presentation of information in way, through they use information channel, auditory, visual, or both. With SRL activity, the methodology, together with the use of a tracking technology and machine learning technique. It is key to understanding how learning processes information, and to being enabled to offer a personalized learning design according to educational needs for each So promoting the development assesses for learning.