Gaze sharing: A survey of its applications in education and future directions

Technology-enhanced education can empower instructors and learners. Gaze sharing - the act of sharing information concerning one person's attention with another person, is an emerging practice in technology-enhanced education. Essentially, gaze information is collected from one party (learner/instructor) using an eye tracker then transferred to another party (learner/instructor), typically via readily interpretable visualizations. Gaze sharing has proven to be effective for supporting a diverse range of educational activities in multiple scenarios. Considering this diversity, researchers can benefit from a coherent description of the potential of the technology in pedagogy, to guide its future development and application. With this aim, we report on a PRISMA-style survey of gaze sharing in education, targeted at obtaining a broad perspective on the applications of the technology for pedagogical purposes. Our survey has yielded insights regarding the scope of application of gaze sharing in education, including its benefits, limitations, and underexplored educational domains. Understanding these is key to effectively applying the technology for educational purposes, as well as for developing it further to overcome current challenges. Our findings may be used by researchers who aim to develop better gaze sharing systems, as well as by policy makers and educators who wish to apply current technology for enhancing education, to reap the benefits of gaze sharing and empower learners and instructors.