Measuring causality between collaborative and individual gaze metrics for collaborative problem-solving with intelligent tutoring systems

When students are working collaboratively and communicating verbally in a technology-enhanced environment, the system cannot track what collaboration is happening outside of the technology, making it difficult to fully assess the collaboration of the students and adapt accordingly. In this article, we propose using gaze measures as a proxy for cognitive processes to achieve collaboration awareness. Specifically, we use Granger causality to analyse the causal relationships between collaborative and individual gaze measures from students working on a fractions intelligent tutoring system and the influence that the students' dialogue, prior knowledge, or success has on these relationships. We found that collaborative gaze patterns drive the individual focus in the pairs with high posttest scores and when they are engaged in problem-solving dialogues but the opposite with low performing students. Our work adds to the literature by extending the correlational relationships between individual and collaborative gaze measures to causal relationships and suggests indicators that can be used within an adaptive system.