Promoting advanced professional vision for monitoring student engagement (PAVE): Effects of visual information variation and expert knowledge interventions on advanced professional vision in novice and experienced teachers

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Tina Seidel
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 545748309

The proposed project examines how teachers with different expertise levels process visual information when monitoring student engagement in class and which training opportunities exist in the use of expert knowledge (visual, verbal) for teacher training. The focus is on capturing teacher eye movement using Eye Movement Tracking (EMT). This is expanded by verbal self-explanations regarding the organization and integration of visual information and by criteria for performance. The basis is a working model that differentiates relevant cognitive processes of advanced professional vision (a-PV): (a) rapid visual information processing, (b) a broad visual field, (c) the organization of visual information into meaningful units (chunks), and (d) the integration of professional knowledge into mental model building. According to the model these processes should lead to better performance in (e) visual recall of such situations. Previous studies provide indications that an a-PV as often shown by experienced teachers occurs primarily when situations are processed in which the activated professional knowledge is aligned with the information. However, it is unclear how these processes change when the visual stimuli deviate from the typical or ideally expected course of events (non-aligned). In these cases, it can be assumed that the visual processing will then be slower and zooming-in on the scene until matching case-related knowledge is identified and activated. So far, such differences can be assumed, but specific and systematic empirical studies are lacking. To investigate these questions in more detail, study 1 examines the effects of the targeted variation of visual information on a-PV. Systematic differences in a-PV and performance are examined by comparing two expertise groups (novices, experienced teachers). Second, the project investigates whether the use of expert knowledge (visual, verbal) for training purposes in teacher education can be advantageous for student teachers and experienced teachers. For this purpose, two variants of a training intervention are empirically tested in study 2 for their effectiveness regarding changes in a-PV: Expert Eye Movement Modeling Examples (EMMEs) and a combination of EMMEs with Verbal Expert Self Explanations (VESEs). The knowledge gained from the project will systematically contribute to the differentiation of knowledge about advanced PV and, for the first time, will empirically test training opportunities based on expert knowledge for teacher training.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Dr. Ricardo Böheim; Dr. Christian Kosel