Through a Child’s Eyes: Developing Tasks to Understand Visual Engagement

Young children are capable problem solvers who can apply a range of different strategies to approach tasks or situations. However, their complex cognitive processes can be difficult to articulate, making it challenging to assess their learning strategies and areas of difficulty.

By using innovative eye tracking technology, we can understand the intuitive visual processes underlying early learning and engagement with digital technology. For example, what visual targets capture their attention? How long is attention sustained? What patterns of attention shifts can be observed? These insights have potential applications in the design of learning tasks, development of interventions, and strategies to support early learning in the digital domain.

Project aims

This project aims to develop a suite of eye tracking tasks to understand how children’s eyes move when engaging in screen-based activities.

The project will run in two phases:

• Phase 1 will develop, design and program a set of tasks that will be used in a pilot investigation to determine the most appropriate tasks to develop into a protocol. For this pilot phase, children aged 5 to 8 years will complete some activities on a computer and touchscreen incorporating the use of a non-invasive eye tracking interface. These activities include symbol searching, visual memory activities and reading arrays of symbols – all skills that are commonly applied during digital engagement. Parents will also complete a short questionnaire about their child’s learning and development and their digital technology use at home.
• Phase 2 will refine these tasks into a final protocol for use in future research projects within the Centre and beyond. We will concurrently develop machine learning analytic techniques to understand individual variability in visual processes that might be the focus of future research.

Outcomes

The outcomes of the project will include guidance on using eye tracking with young children and a suite of tasks suitable for future research exploring the connection between visual processes, digital engagement, and learning behaviours. These findings will contribute to a growing understanding of how digital technology shapes early cognitive and learning strategies.