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In a collaborative project with South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã State University's College of Nursing, Phuong Nguyen, assistant professor in the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering, will help facilitate nursing simulation programming research by utilizing eye-tracking technology.

Eye-tracking technology may have once seemed straight out of a science fiction movie, but at South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã State University, it is now being used to help better train nurses and other health care professionals.

Phuong Nguyen, assistant professor in the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering, is helping facilitate eye-tracking technology that faculty members in SDSU's College of Nursing will use to track the responses of nursing students engaged in computer-based health care simulation training. 

Tobii, , has been developing eye-tracking technology for more than 20 years. After having delivered the first remote eye tracker, it has now developed an affordable and technologically feasible eye tracker that can be easily attached to computer monitors. This tool is now making its way into many different research fields, and the collaborative SDSU project will be one of the first times eye tracking will be used in health care simulation education and research — a field in which SDSU's College of Nursing is a nationally recognized leader.

The key to Tobii's eye-tracking technology are sensors and cameras that measure where someone is looking, also known as the "point of gaze." The cameras in the monitor detect eye movements which reveal a range of signals including scan patterns, blinks and pupil dilation. The eye tracker uses a processor and algorithms to convert these signals into data that researchers, like Nguyen, analyze to reveal insights into decision-making, fatigue, attention and memory.

In this project, Tobii's eye tracker will be attached to computer monitors used for screen-based simulation education during the prebriefing and active simulation process. Nursing students will experience the screen-based program, and the eye tracker will capture data from the students. After data has been collected from the program’s trial period, the data will be analyzed by Nguyen, a faculty member in the Department of Construction and Operations Management, to see where the challenges, or the difficult parts of the program, lie.

"With these factors, we can determine how hard the task was for the student," Nguyen explained. "We can determine the cognitive load for the screen-based simulation as well."

The data will inform how the simulation program can improve teaching and learning strategies utilizing technology. Brittany Brennan, assistant professor in SDSU's College of Nursing, will lead the simulation side of the project.

"We can figure out why some problems or tasks were harder than others," Nguyen said. "Was this unclear? Was this not discussed enough? The data will help identify and answer those questions."

Nguyen, whose research focus lies in construction safety and productivity, believes eye trackers will be helpful for his own research studies in the future. In SDSU's Department of Construction and Concrete Industry Management, virtual reality is used for a variety for research and education activities in the Virtual Design and Construction Lab in Solberg Hall. Nguyen will utilize eye trackers to better understand construction safety training and how it can be improved in similar types of studies to his collaborative project with the College of Nursing. The outcomes of this collaborative project are expected to bring cross-benefits from healthcare to the construction industry.

This collaborative project is being funded by a $10,000 grant from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare.