The influence of time pressure on gaze behaviour and examination results during an examination situation – Randomized Controlled Pilot Study

Aim and Research Question(s)

To investigate the effects of time pressure on gaze behaviour and cognitive performance in a exam situation and to estimate the sample size for future studies. This pilot study addressed the following research questions:

• What influence does time pressure have on cognitive performance?
• What influence does time pressure have on gaze behaviour?
• What influence does time pressure have on subjective workload?

Background

It is known that time pressure can increase cognitive performance in the short but can lead to health problems in the long term term [1]. The literature describes how time pressure affects cognitive performance [2] or gaze behaviour [4]. The research gap here is how time pressure in an examination situation affects gaze behaviour and cognitive performance.

Methods

The randomised controlled pilot study was conducted with 20 participants. A group of 10 participants carried out the d2-R performance and concentration test with and without time pressure. During the test, eye tracking was carried out using VPS 19 eye tracking glasses and the participants then assessed their subjective workload after the test using the NASA-TLX questionnaire. The sample size estimation was calculated using G*Power.

Results and Discussion

There were no significant differences between the two groups in any of the above research questions. Although the participants in the group with time pressure tended to process more target objects (204±29 vs. 194±29) and had a higher concentration performance (191±35 vs. 176±19), the results were without significance in the metrics omission error, confusion error and error percentage. Furthermore, there were no significant changes in gaze behaviour. The metrics gaze velocity (11.3±4.8 vs. 1.5±5.2 °/s), fixation duration (11.3±4.8 vs. 11.5±5.2 s) and dwell count (0.5±1.3 vs. 0.0±0.0) hardly differed. The assessment of the workload also showed only very slight differences in the overall score (10.0±2.0 vs. 9.8±2.3 ) and in the subcategories and was therefore not significant.

Conclusion

Time pressure in an examination situation is not sufficient to cause differences in examination behaviour. Motivation and incentives are important when simulating examination situations, as well as the number of participants.

References

1. B. S. McEwen, „Neurobiological and Systemic Effects of Chronic Stress“, Chronic Stress (Thousand Oaks), Bd. 1, S. 2470547017692328, Apr. 2017, doi: 10.1177/2470547017692328.
2. S. M. M. de Mooij, N. Z. Kirkham, M. E. J. Raijmakers, H. L. J. van der Maas, und I. Dumontheil, „Should online math learning environments be tailored to individuals’ cognitive profiles?“, J Exp Child Psychol, Bd. 191, S. 104730, März 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104730.
3. N. Herten, T. Otto, und O. T. Wolf, „The role of eye fixation in memory enhancement under stress - An eye tracking study“, Neurobiol Learn Mem, Bd. 140, S. 134–144, Apr. 2017, doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2017.02.016.