Meaningful Eye-Movement Metrics as Predictors of Reading Comprehension: A Meta-Analysis

ABSTRACT

The Eye-Teach project (https://www.eyeteach.eu/) aims to develop an AI-assisted Eye-Tracking tool that will help teachers to better support their students’ reading comprehension. As part of this project, we want to specify how meaningful eye-movement metrics, i.e., those clearly aligned to cognitive processes deployed during reading, are related to students’ comprehension. While prior research has identified clear links, the strength and direction of this relationship across different eye-movement measures remain unclear, and eye-movement indicators of good or poor comprehension have not yet been clearly identified. In our ongoing meta-analysis, we aim to determine how characteristics of students, texts, and tasks shape the association between different meaningful eye-movement metrics and comprehension. The output will guide the development of a transparent AI-assisted tool that will be able to assess students and inform teachers about their difficulties linked to underlying cognitive processes.