For pre-service and in-service teachers
Eye-Tracking Vignettes
An eye-tracking vignette is a short scene from a real classroom situation: a student works on a graph task. You see the task, the student’s answer (often with a short explanation), and a visualisation of where the student looked while working on it.
Your task is to work out how the student approached the graph. Where did they look, in what order and for how long? What might they have been thinking? The vignettes are based on real student data and focus on systematic errors in interpreting dotplots, histograms, boxplots and case-value plots.
Work through the vignettes
The vignettes are on MaMpf (Mathematical Media Platform), a free, open-source e-learning platform of the Institute for Mathematics at Heidelberg University. Registration is free and you do not need a university e-mail address. The MaMpf interface is in English and German. The vignette course itself is available in English, Dutch and German.
Create a free account on MaMpf
Download the vignettes as PDF
All eye-tracking vignettes in one PDF, in English, Dutch or German.
No account is needed to download. Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
See a Vignette in Action
Before registering on MaMpf, explore how a vignette works through the walkthrough below.
1. Introduction: Scenario
Each vignette opens with a short classroom scenario: a student has just given an answer to a task.
2.Task
Getting familiar with and solving the problem
You see the same task the student worked on, and solve it yourself first — before seeing how they reasoned.
3.Introduction: Eye-Tracking
Before revealing the student’s answer, the vignette introduces the idea of gaze data — what it is, and what it can show.
4. Answer and Gaze Data
Getting familiar with eye-tracking and answer
You see what the student answered, then are invited to watch a short recording of her eye movements (gaze video) while she worked.
5. Answer and Gaze Data
Put yourself in the student's position
Watching the gaze video, you write down what you think the student may have been reasoning as she worked through the task.
6. Comment and Gaze Data
Assessment of one's own statement
You read the student’s comment and rate how closely it matches what you assumed.
7. Comment and Gaze Data
Evaluation of the Solution
You evaluate Erika’s overall understanding, based on her comment and the gaze data together.
8. Introduction: Error
Finally, the vignette breaks down the observable behaviour, how a teacher might interpret it, and the underlying conceptual difficulty it reveals.
9. Task-Practice
Practicing part-tasks
You apply what you have learned to a new scenario involving the same systematic error, practising the diagnostic skills introduced in the vignette.
