Toward a Complex Systems Model of Enculturation: A Dual Eye-Tracking Study

• In Event: Innovations in Methods and Frameworks for Learning

Abstract

We propose a complex-systems approach to educational research that subsumes and integrates enactivist and sociocultural perspectives on teaching–learning phenomena. An empirical study used dual-eye-tracking (DET) to supplement measures of a tutor–student dyad’s joint action with synchronous measures of their perceptual activity. Microgenetic analysis of pilot DET data from implementing a computer-based embodied design for parabolas reveals the emergence of coupling between the tutor and student’s respective perceptual-motor systems. Findings suggest the hitherto under-theorized participatory role of tutors’ perceptual activity in guiding students’ idiosyncratic sensorimotor engagement with cultural artifacts toward normative practice, thus enriching our understanding of enculturation. We offer implications for the conceptualization, ideation, design, implementation, and facilitation of educational technologies that surface, accommodate, and support the instructor’s perceptual activity.

Authors

• Anna Shvarts, Lomonosov Moscow State University

• Dor Abrahamson, University of California - Berkeley