Beyond Fixations: A Critical Methodological Review of Chemistry Eye Tracking Research in Higher Education

This critical methodological review examines how eye tracking methodologies have been employed in chemistry education research and how those methodological decisions shape and constrain the cognitive claims that can be drawn from the resulting data, with a focus on study design, theoretical frameworks, task types, and data analysis measures. We analyzed 33 studies across 16 publication venues, focusing on research investigating undergraduate and/or graduate chemistry student learning. Beyond cataloging methodological trends, we illustrate how methodological decisions may jointly shape and constrain the cognitive claims that can be drawn from eye tracking data. Our analysis indicates that many studies use a limited selection of methodological choices, ones well-suited to identifying where and how long students look but less-equipped to capture how learners integrate and reason through chemical representations over time. We argue that advancing the field requires treating these methodological decisions as interdependent rather than as independently justified defaults, and we outline implications for how future eye tracking research in chemistry education can be designed and interpreted. These insights add to existing literature and aim to guide future research on undergraduate and graduate students’ learning in chemistry toward theoretically informed, context sensitive, and pedagogically relevant applications in chemistry education.