Contingency Theory of Adaptive Practices Through the Lens of Eye Trackers

Abstract

In this paper, we report on a study of adaptive practices, as revealed by a teacher’s eye gazes, in response to the contingencies that arose during a lesson. From the literature, four categories of adaptive practices, namely, adaptive recognitions, adaptive anticipations, adaptive deliberations, and adaptive insights were used for initial coding. In this study, eye tracking technologies are positioned as a mediator between the contingencies that arise in the classroom and the adaptive practices undertaken by teachers. The two research questions are: (1) What classroom events and/or objects, as revealed by the eye fixations, invoke the adaptive practice(s) of recognitions, anticipations, deliberations and/or insights during a lesson? (2) What events unfold following the enactment of the adaptive practice as informed by the eye fixations? The findings in this paper were based on a 29-minute lesson video of a biology lesson during which the teacher was wearing eye trackers. The four contingences that arose during the lesson include: (1) students engaging in personal talks, (2) students not taking down notes, (3) students not looking confident when answering, and (4) student raised hand to seek clarification. This study offers new insights into the nature of teachers’ adaptive practices in classroom teaching, with two new sub-categories of adaptive practices being identified. The findings suggest that eye-tracking technologies can help to generate new empirical insights on the nature of adaptive practices that teachers adopt in the classroom.