Eliminating Communication and Technological Barriers to STEM Education

研究人员建议研究课堂上的新显示技术对听障学生的影响。他们将使用录像带和眼球追踪技术进行一系列实验，调查视觉技术可能在多大程度上给STEM课堂上的这些学生带来额外的认知负担。他们借鉴了关于分散注意力、干扰以及利用竞争模式对信息整合的影响的文献。调查人员将能够追踪每个学生的注意力并记录下来，例如，当他们盯着口译员时，当他们把目光移开观看视觉显示时，他们精确地接收到什么信息，以及他们从中接收到什么信息。研究人员可以将这些信息成绩单与其他学生（听力正常和听力受损的学生）收到的成绩单以及完整的交流记录进行比较。他们将能够比较不同学生处理这些竞争性输入流的效率。他们希望确定学习者和教育者可以通过视觉技术和口译的协调来提高学习的策略。

The researchers propose to study the impact that new display technologies in classroom have on hearing-impaired students. They will conduct a series of experiments using videotape and eye-tracking technology that will investigate the extent to which visual technologies may place additional cognitive burdens on such students in STEM classrooms. They draw on the literatures on divided attention, interference, and the effects that utilizing competing modalities has for integrating information. The investigators will be able to track individual students' attention and document, for example, precisely what information they receive when gazing at the interpreter, when they look away to view the visual display, and what information they receive from it. The researchers can compare these informational transcripts against those received by other students (hearing and hearing-impaired) as well as against the complete record of communication. They will be able to compare the efficacy with which different students deal with these competing input-streams. They hope to identify strategies by which learners and educators can enhance learning through the coordination of visual technologies and interpreting.