Understanding scanning and development of perceptual expertise: A qualitative study using eye-tracking methodology

In the fast-paced and complex environment of ice hockey, players’ visual perception is a critical performance skill. However, research on visual exploration in-situ remains limited and a first-person perspective of how players scan the ice has been generally inaccessible to coaches and researchers. In this study, we bridged that gap by capturing players’ eye movements in game-based activity with the aim to better understand scanning and development of perceptual expertise in ice hockey. In our work we studied scanning strategies and developmental pathways of 16 junior players from the USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program. Participants wore mobile eye-tracking glasses during live scrimmages, followed by gaze-anchored-video-stimulated interviews. Through reflexive thematic analysis we identified three higher-order themes: (i) functionality of scanning; (ii) innovation meets reality; and (iii) learning in development. The results showed that scanning was characterised as an anticipatory mechanism for the future game-phase transition, perceiving intentions of others, deception, and injury mitigation. Participants revealed that development of perceptual expertise was largely done implicitly through informal play and sibling modelling, and that explicit learning through coaching was minimal despite some who received guidance from fathers with National Hockey League level experience. Crucially, a key insight was that viewing their own performance via gaze-overlay video allowed athletes to articulate previously implicit cognitive processes and enhance knowledge of the game through self-awareness. Overall, these findings suggest that integrating eye-tracking technology into feedback loops can bridge the gap between implicit performance and explicit coaching, offering new avenues to explore in athlete development.