Looking through Sherlock's eyes: Effects of eye movement modelling examples with and without verbal explanations on deductive reasoning

Background: Eye movement modelling examples (EMME) are demonstrations in which learners' not only see a model's (e.g., a teacher's) task performance on a computer screen (as in regular video examples) but also the model's eye movements (represented as moving coloured dots overlaid on the screen). Thereby EMME help guide learners' attention towards the relevant information and can model cognitive strategies which are otherwise unobservable for learners. 

Objectives: This study investigated whether EMME can help to learn deductive reasoning strategies and how the presence/absence of a teacher's verbal explanation affects learning from EMME. 

Methods: Secondary education students (N = 137) were randomly assigned to study video examples under one of four conditions in a 2 (EMME: yes/no) x 2 (verbal explanations: yes/no) between-subjects design. 

Results and Conclusions: Results revealed only a beneficial effect of the presence of verbal explanations on performance on the practice problems, but no pretest-to-posttest learning gains. 

Implications: Seeing the teacher's eye movements does not appear to enhance learning of deductive reasoning. The presence/absence of the teacher's verbal explanation does not seem to affect learning deductive reasoning.