Influence of science text reading difficulty and hands‐on manipulation on science learning: An eye‐tracking study

This study used eye-movement tracking to investigate how students engage with the learning process of reading science articles or without hands-on manipulation a pulley system and their influences on outcomes. experiment 2 (reading easy difficult articles) × (with manipulation) between-subject design. Seventy-nine undergraduate participated. They first read article about rotational mechanics then completed problem-solving task. While completing task, two pure groups could reread write down answers, read-and-manipulation were allowed manipulate in addition article. The participants' eye movements recorded during completion this Results showed that benefited those learners who article, since they had better scores regarding task; was not case for Eye movement data spent more processing time rereading as well writing answers task than did other groups. Furthermore, easy-article group significantly longer performing but preparing planning manipulating difficult-article group. transition proportion fixations reflected looking acting order participants indicated groups' similarities (e.g., seldom refer reverse) differences preferred check back-and-forth if resolved testing questions, so relatively seldom).