This study examines students’ visual behaviors when they tackle two types of synthesis problems, sequential and simultaneous problems. Sequential synthesis tasks can be solved by applying pertinent concepts consecutively, whereas simultaneous synthesis tasks require concurrent application of multiple concepts. Twenty-two students from an introductory calculus-based physics course participated in the study. We used an eye-tracker to record the students’ eye movements when they silently reflected on how to solve the problems and subsequently when they talked aloud their problem-solving strategies. We found that the students made more gaze transitions between text and diagram for the simultaneous problems than for the sequential ones. However, they spent more time looking at the diagram and making within-diagram eye transitions in the sequential tasks than in the simultaneous tasks. Further, most students invoked two concepts to solve the sequential tasks but only one for the simultaneous tasks. These findings indicate that the students made less effort to link text and diagram in solving sequential problems but frequently attempted to integrate information within each diagram. The pattern for the simultaneous problems appeared to be reversed. Our results suggest that different types of synthesis (i.e., sequential and simultaneous) may differentially influence the ways students handle tasks. As suggested by the eye-tracker data and confirmed by the participants’ verbal explanations, students tend to divide the situation in sequential problems into subtasks but treat simultaneous problems as a single-step task.

中文翻译：

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顺序和同时综合问题的解决：学生凝视过渡的比较

这项研究考察了学生在解决两种综合问题时的视觉行为，即顺序问题和同时问题。顺序综合任务可以通过连续应用相关概念来解决，而同时综合任务需要同时应用多个概念。来自基础微积分物理课程的22名学生参加了该研究。当学生默默地思考如何解决问题以及随后大声说出解决问题的方法时，我们使用了眼动仪来记录他们的眼动。我们发现，与同时发生的问题相比，同时发生的问题学生在文本和图表之间进行了更多的凝视过渡。然而，与顺序任务相比，他们在顺序任务上花费更多的时间查看图表并进行图内眼图过渡。此外，大多数学生都引用了两个概念来解决顺序任务，而对于同时任务则只有一个概念。这些发现表明，在解决顺序问题时，学生在链接文本和图表上花费的精力较少，但经常尝试将信息整合到每个图表中。同时出现的问题的模式似乎是相反的。我们的结果表明，不同类型的综合（即顺序和同步）可能会不同地影响学生处理任务的方式。根据眼动仪数据的建议，并由参与者的口头解释所证实，