How Does Student Behavior Attract Preservice Teachers' Attention While Teaching?

• In Event: Approaches to Student and Teacher Classroom Interactions

Abstract

Teachers need to continuously monitor students´ engagement in classrooms. However, previous research indicates that novice teachers have difficulties to evenly distribute their attention across learners. To investigate whether novices’ attentional processes are attracted by a certain student behavior, we re-analyzed eye-tracking data from preservice teachers while they taught four simulated learners showing different behavior (Authors, 2017). With a new methodological approach, we synchronized the data with a continuous annotation of observable student behavior and conducted time series analysis on N = 3656 seconds of video material. Results indicate preservice teachers’ attention is attracted by salient on-task behavior, while they try to avoid paying attention to salient off-task behavior (i.e. disruption).

Authors

• Patricia Goldberg, University of Tübingen

• Jakob Schwerter, University of Tübingen

• Tina Seidel, Technical University of Munich

• Katharina Müller, University of Hannover

• Kathleen Stürmer, University of Tübingen