An eye tracking study of graphic representation in biology

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the role of graphic representations in the learning of biology domain. We examined 34 college students’ eye movements while observing the plant tissues graphics through eye tracker. The students were divided into two groups: the biology group (N=17) and the non-biology group (N=17). Analyzing eye movement data and mental effort rating, we found that all college students had higher cognitive load and longer cognitive processes when they observed the textbook graphics compared with the authentic graphs. There were also differences in attention distribution in two graphs. Students in non-biology group had more fixations on text area than the other group. We considered that the two groups had dissimilar patterns in learning graphic representations.