Visual attention when solving economics learningtasks using dynamic, interactive graphs: An eye tracking study

Price–quantity graphs are often used to visualize the supply-demand interplay.
Interacting with dynamic graphs could increase interest in their content and thus
enhance the learning process. Using eye tracking, the authors investigated how
economic education students learned with static and dynamic graphs by analyzing their gaze behavior in a laboratory setting as they solved single-choice
learning tasks involving price–quantity graphs. They found that the students’
mean performance was higher on tasks using dynamic graphs than on those
using static graphs. Students’ prior knowledge, attitude toward economic models,
and total fixation duration predicted performance on graph-based exercises,
whereas graph type did not. The results suggest that dynamic graphs might support knowledge retrieval better than static graphs in a learning environment for
economic education.