Eye-tracking research on teacher professional vision: A meta-analytic review

An increasing number of research groups worldwide use eye tracking to study the professional vision and visual expertise of pre-service and in-service teachers. These studies offer evidence about how teachers process complex visual information in classrooms. Focusing on this growing evidence, the present meta-analytic review (k = 98 studies) aims to systematically aggregate and integrate past eye-tracking research on teacher professional vision and teacher noticing. Four goals are addressed. First, we review the methodological characteristics of past eye-tracking studies in terms of their sample, stimulus, and eye movement characteristics. The results show that most studies use mobile eye-tracking devices in action or remote eye trackers with classroom videos on action; less frequently used are photographs and virtual classroom simulations. The average sample size of the reviewed studies is 13 in-service and 13 pre-service teachers per study, indicating the benefit of meta-analytic synthesis. Second, we meta-analyze expertise-related differences between experienced and inexperienced teachers in two frequently used eye movement measures—teacher gaze proportions and the Gini coefficient as a measure of teachers’ equal gaze distribution in the classroom. Results suggest that experienced teachers had higher gaze proportions on the students in the classroom than inexperienced teachers (g = 0.926) who, in turn, gazed more often on instructional material and other objects in the classroom. Experienced teachers distributed their gaze more evenly than inexperienced teachers between students in the classroom (g = 0.501). Third, we synthesize the results reported in eye-tracking research on the processes of teacher professional vision using the cognitive theory of visual expertise as an organizing framework; the review also discusses boundary conditions of eye-tracking research with regard to student, teacher, and instructional characteristics. Fourth, we review studies exploring the use of gaze replays and eye movement modeling examples as an instructional tool to support reflection in teacher education and teacher professional development.