Students’ visual attention during teacher’s talk as a predictor of mathematical achievement: a cautionary tale

This paper reports on a study conducted in a primary school in Santiago, Chile, where a sample of 18 randomly selected first-grade students wore a mini video camera mounted on eyeglasses in their mathematics’ lessons. Using Google Images, we identified frames from the recordings where the classroom teacher appeared in the students’ visual field. The results show that low and high achieving students differed in paying visual attention in their mathematics lessons, particularly when the teachers’ discourse was accompanied by gestures. Furthermore, high and low achieving students were visually engaged with teachers’ instructional information in different ways, and at different times throughout the 90 minutes of the lesson. The findings of this study allow us to understand and explore whether students’ mathematical achievement might be explained by examining students’ visual attention in teacher-student interactions at the beginning of the year. The findings of this study have particular importance for the early identification of lower achievers in mathematics at an early stage, and hence allow us to plan effective interventions to support these students.