Abstract
Contemporarily available technology has provided researchers with quite an accessible method to see through students' eyes. This offers researchers the chance to re-evaluate teaching materials in terms of their potential function, one that has been largely overlooked.
This study presents a literature review drawing on science textbooks that use the eye-tracking method. Relevant journal articles or conference papers indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases were selected.
From the original 112 papers, 18 were submitted to a thorough analysis after duplicate papers and papers not conforming to the topic were excluded. The studies' characteristics, topics (influence of textbook design on student learning, distribution of attention, textbook effect etc.) and used methods (the device and measurement, additional methods, methodological issues) are included in the review. (Novice) science education researchers, state officers responsible for textbook evaluation, textbook authors and even teachers can profit from this overview, as it clearly indicates the state of the art as well as potential research directions.