Abstract:

The article deals with the ways primary teacher trainees read pictorial and textual information. It is well known that visual materials are capable of transmitting relatively larger amount of information than mere textual ones. Teachers usually have no difficulty reading information in graphic or combined forms, but when presenting new curriculum, they often rely upon presenting in text form and can thus complicate their students' learning or even deprive them of some knowledge. The basic tool of the research is eye-tracking technology. Using hardware and software tools, it analyses the respondent's eye movements when watching the computer screen and is thus able to determine what the respondent is looking at when solving a certain task. Data is exported from the eye-tracking application both in the numerical form and as images as well as video files. The research evaluated data in all the formats obtained from the respondents who aimed to perform tasks in various fields of science and technology education. To complete the tasks, the respondents had to evaluate the information provided in textual, combined and purely graphical form. The aim of the research was to find whether uniform models of reading image information will be recorded and whether there will be differences in the way image information is read between different groups of respondents. The results obtained by quantitative and qualitative data analysis are presented in the form of theories and discussed in the context of further research findings related to the use of eye-tracking in science and technology education.

Keywords:

Science education, technical education, eye-tracking, teacher trainees, primary education.