Eye tracker as a tool for special teachers - An example of application in deaf education
The introduction discusses the distinctive difficulties with reading comprehension of texts in school textbooks experienced by students with hearing impairments in the light of the literature on the subject. Then, the basics of eye tracking are outlined - a technique that was used in the author's research - including such fundamental terms as fixation and saccades. The main part of the article is a report on the author’s research whose aim was to determine the effectiveness of reading short educational texts in the field of science where different types of infographics were used, and to compare the cognitive process specific to information search in students with hearing impairments to the one in their hearing peers. A test was used as a research method. The research was conducted with the use of the eye tracking technique. Results were presented graphically and numerically. The graphical forms included: a heat map, i.e., a map showing a participant's visual fixation - and thus indirectly his or her focus of attention - and a scan path, which shows fixations and saccades following one another, thus revealing eye gaze behaviors. Conclusions from the research showed that the eye tracking technique could be used to assess a person’s cognitive activity, and in particular, to determine what information layout in an infographic is best suited to the abilities of students with hearing impairments and activates similar cognitive strategies in them to those in their hearing peers, and so should be prevalent in textbooks for this group of students.