The researchers propose to study the impact that new display technologies in classroom have on hearing-impaired students. They will conduct a series of experiments using videotape and eye-tracking technology that will investigate the extent to which visual technologies may place additional cognitive burdens on such students in STEM classrooms. They draw on the literatures on divided attention, interference, and the effects that utilizing competing modalities has for integrating information. The investigators will be able to track individual students' attention and document, for example, precisely what information they receive when gazing at the interpreter, when they look away to view the visual display, and what information they receive from it. The researchers can compare these informational transcripts against those received by other students (hearing and hearing-impaired) as well as against the complete record of communication. They will be able to compare the efficacy with which different students deal with these competing input-streams. They hope to identify strategies by which learners and educators can enhance learning through the coordination of visual technologies and interpreting.
