Abstract
This paper provides evidence of individual difference on digital reading, by examining male/female and good/poor readers’ eye tracking records (including pupil, blinks, fixations, saccades, and regressions). From 6,520 undergraduate students’ university entrance exam scores and the follow-up reading assessments, we strategically selected 74 participants (half males and half females, top 3% good readers and bottom 3% poor readers) from different disciplines. Results indicated that the major differences between male and female readers were saccade duration, regression rate, and blink rate. Good and poor readers differ significantly in most of the eye tracking indicators, and the major effects of reading ability were more obvious than the gender effects. Among all the eight indicators examined in this study, blink and regression rates are most sensitive to gender attribute, while fixation rate and saccade amplitude presented least sensitiveness. These findings would be helpful for user modeling with eye-tracking data in intelligent tutoring systems.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bacon, S.M.: The relationship between gender, comprehension, processing strategies, and cognitive and affective response in foreign language listening. Mod. Lang. J. 76(2), 160–178 (1992)
Chapman, P., Underwood, G.M.: Visual search of driving situations: danger and experience. Perception 27(8), 951–964 (1998)
Chan, D.W., Ho, C.S.H., Tsang, S.M., Lee, S.H., Chung, K.K.H.: Prevalence, gender ratio and gender differences in reading-related cognitive abilities among Chinese children with dyslexia in Hong Kong. Educ. Stud. 33(2), 249–265 (2007)
Clifton, C., Staub, A., Rayner, K.: Eye movements in reading words and sentences. In: Van Gompel, R., Fischer, M., Murray, W.S., Hill, R.L. (eds.) Eye Movements: A Window on Mind and Brain, pp. 341–372. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2007)
Ehmke, C., Wilson, S.: Identifying web usability problems from eye-tracking data. In: British HCI Group Conference on HCI: HCI But Not As We Know It (2007)
Foong, K.P., Goh, C.: Chinese ESL students’ learning strategies: a look at frequency, proficiency, and gender. Hong Kong J. Appl. Linguist. 2(1), 39–53 (1997)
Ho, C.S.H., Chan, D.W.O., Lee, S.H., Tsang, S.M., Luan, V.H.: Cognitive profiling and preliminary subtyping in Chinese developmental dyslexia. Cognition 91(1), 43–75 (2004)
Hu, M.: Research on the university students’ reading strategies and the relationship with eye movement. (Unpublished master dissertation), Soochow University, China (2012)
Jiang, B.: Influence of column designing on university students’ reading: evidence from eye movement. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), Nanjing Normal University, China (2007)
Jing, S.: Researches on the inferences in reading of high school students with different reading ability. Ph.D. dissertation, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China (2002)
Kuperman, V., Van Dyke, J.A.: Effects of individual differences in verbal skills on eye-movement patterns during sentence reading. J. Mem. Lang. 65, 42–73 (2011)
Lee, M.L.: A study of the selection of reading strategies among genders by EFL college students. Procedia-Soc. Behav. Sci. 64, 310–319 (2012)
Leong, C.K., Tse, S.K., Loh, K.Y., Hau, K.T.: Text comprehension in Chinese children: relative contribution of verbal working memory, pseudo word reading, rapid automatized naming, and onset-rime phonological segmentation. J. Educ. Psychol. 100(1), 135–149 (2008)
Nakayama, M., Takahashi, K., Shimizu, Y.: The act of task difficulty and eye-movement frequency for the oculo-motor indices. In: Proceedings of the 2002 Symposium on Eye-Tracking Research & Applications, pp. 37–42 (2002)
Nelson III, W.M., Dacey, C.M.: Validity of the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale-IV: its use in young adults with mental retardation. Ment. Retard. 37, 319–325 (1999)
Oxford, R.L.: Gender differences in language learning styles: what do they mean? In: Reid, J.M. (ed.) Learning Styles in the ESL/EFL Classroom, pp. 34–46. Heinle & Heinle Publishers, Florence (1995)
Oxford, R., Nyikos, M.: Variables affecting choice of language learning strategies by university students. Mod. Lang. J. 73(3), 291–300 (1989)
Phakiti, A.: A closer look at the relationship of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use to EFL reading achievement test performance. Lang. Test. 20(1), 26–56 (2003)
Rayner, K., Shen, D., Bai, X.: Cognitive and Cultural Influences on Eye Movements, pp. 122–124. Tianjin People’s Publishing House, Tianjin (2008)
Rayner, K., Ardoin, S.P., Binder, K.S.: Children’s eye movements in reading: a commentary. Sch. Psychol. Rev. 42, 223–233 (2013)
Roid, G.H.: Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, 5th edn. Riverside, Rolling Meadows (2003)
Sheorey, R., Mokhtari, K.: Differences in the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies among native and non-native readers. System 29, 431–449 (2001)
Silverman, W., Miezejeski, C., Ryan, R., Zigman, W., Krinsky-McHale, S., Urv, T.: Stanford-Binet and WAIS IQ differences and their implications for adults with intellectual disability (aka mental retardation). Intelligence 38(2), 242–248 (2010)
Tecce, J.J.: Psychology, physiology and experimental. In: Yearbook of Science and Technology, pp. 375–377. McGraw-Hill, New York (1992)
Thorndike, R.L., Hagen, E.P., Sattler, J.M.: Correlations Between Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Fourth Edition SASs, & Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) IQs for Examinees Designated by Their Schools as Mentally Retarded. Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, 4th edn. Riverside, Chicago, IL (1986)
Tsai, Y.F., Viirre, E., Strychacz, C., Chase, B., Jung, T.P.: Task performance and eye activity: predicting behavior relating to cognitive workload. Aviat. Space Environ. Med. 78(Supplement 1), B176–B185 (2007)
Wang, L.Y., Sui, G.Y., Chen, C.P.: Eye movement performance for gender differences in visual selective attention. Psychol. Sci. 33(2), 409–411 (2010)
Wolkoff, P., Nøjgaard, J.K., Troiano, P., Piccoli, B.: Eye complaints in the office environment: precorneal tear film integrity influenced by eye blinking efficiency. Occup. Environ. Med. 62(1), 4–12 (2005)
Wu, Y., Liu, R., Jeffrey, P.: Research on the quality of Chinese English undergraduate students. Foreign Lang. Teach. Res. 1, 36–46 (1993)
Wu, D., Shu, H.: Application of eye movement technology in reading research. J. Dev. Psychol. 4, 319–324 (2001)
Xu, J.: Correlations of students’ English reading strategies: gender difference and their reading scores. (Unpublished master dissertation), East China Normal University, Shanghai, China (2009)
Young, D.J., Oxford, R.: A gender-related analysis of strategies used to process input in the native language and a foreign language. Appl. Lang. Learn. 8, 43–73 (1997)
Yuan, Y.: Study on Chinese reading ability of middle school and primary school students with hearing disorders. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China (2004)
Yue, Z.B.: Research on the content of the reading test of the college entrance examination of the Chinese subject. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), Shanghai Normal University, China (2009)
Zhan, Z., Zhang, L., Mei, H., Fong, P.S.: Online learners’ reading ability detection based on eye-tracking sensors. Sensors 16(9), 1457 (2016)
Zhang, P., Gao, Z., Liu, J.: Research on the gender difference of English learners’ vocabulary concepts and strategies. Foreign Lang. Learn. Teach. 52(8), 35–37 (2002)
Zou, Y.: Study on the information processing characteristics of Chinese students with developmental dyslexia. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation), South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China (2003)
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Natural Science Foundation in China (#61305144), the Pearl River Scholar Scheme in Guangdong Province (file No.79 in 2017), the Major basic research and applied research projects of Guangdong Education Department (#2017WZDXM004), the Youth Research project in Guangdong Province (#2017WT016); MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (#19YJC880125); National Social Science Foundation of China (#18BGL053), the Key Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences by the MOE (#16JJD8800025), the Science & Technology Project of Guangzhou Municipality(#201604010054). We also want to thank all the participants in this study for their cooperation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this paper
Cite this paper
Zhan, Z., Wu, J., Mei, H., Fong, P.S., Huang, M., Shao, F. (2019). Gender Differences in Eye Movements During Online Reading. In: Cheung, S., Jiao, J., Lee, LK., Zhang, X., Li, K., Zhan, Z. (eds) Technology in Education: Pedagogical Innovations. ICTE 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1048. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9895-7_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9895-7_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-9894-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-9895-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)