- Previous research has examined teacher attitudes toward student gender and teacher eye movements when looking at girls and boys in classrooms. However, to date, these two lines of research are rather separated. To better understand the co-occurrence of visual and attitudinal preferences, we investigated whether pre-service teachers’ attitudes are associated with their selective attention allocation toward girls and boys. Grounded in the cognitive theory of visual expertise, this multi-method study invited n = 105 pre-service teachers to watch a classroom video while their gaze was recorded. In addition, feeling thermometers measured their explicit gender attitudes and an implicit association test (IAT) measured their implicit gender attitudes. Findings revealed that female and male teachers implicitly and explicitly favored girls over boys. The results also demonstrated that, independent of teacher gender, girls were fixated more frequently than boys. When examining the correlationPrevious research has examined teacher attitudes toward student gender and teacher eye movements when looking at girls and boys in classrooms. However, to date, these two lines of research are rather separated. To better understand the co-occurrence of visual and attitudinal preferences, we investigated whether pre-service teachers’ attitudes are associated with their selective attention allocation toward girls and boys. Grounded in the cognitive theory of visual expertise, this multi-method study invited n = 105 pre-service teachers to watch a classroom video while their gaze was recorded. In addition, feeling thermometers measured their explicit gender attitudes and an implicit association test (IAT) measured their implicit gender attitudes. Findings revealed that female and male teachers implicitly and explicitly favored girls over boys. The results also demonstrated that, independent of teacher gender, girls were fixated more frequently than boys. When examining the correlation between attitudes and fixations, the study found that pre-service teachers’ implicit attitudes and their number of fixations on girls were positively correlated. These results confirm the assumption that attention tends to be directed more on information that is consistent (rather than inconsistent) with underlying teacher attitudes, especially in complex tasks, possibly to reduce mental effort. Future research can consider the context of the observation (language lessons), as teachers’ expectations in different disciplinary fields and observation contexts may influence the co-occurrence of attitudes and gaze in the classroom. Further directions on the use of eye tracking as a tool to reflect on gender biases are discussed.…
