Examining the future of subtitled lectures at the University of Antwerp

With the growing number of opportunities to study abroad, many universities are considering using English as an instructional language. Since limited proficiency in English might be a drawback, Ph.D. student Yanou Van Gauwbergen from the University of Antwerp dedicates his doctoral research to investigating whether live subtitling can help overcome the language barrier. He addresses his research query by using Tobii Pro Glasses 3 to see through the eyes of students.

Yanou and his supervisors, prof. Dr. Isabelle S. Robert and prof. Dr. Iris Schrijver, research goal is to understand the effect of intralingual live subtitling on students’ perception, performance, and cognitive load in lectures taught in English. In their most recent study, the researchers looked into student attention allocation and cognitive load during English-spoken and subtitled lectures. To this end, they equipped the classroom with eight pairs of Tobii Pro Glasses 3, which students wore during the lectures.

The study took place during Research Skills lectures in English to students of Applied Linguistics, of whom the majority have Dutch as their first language. The live subtitling was produced via respeaking¹ and automatic speech recognition-generated subtitles, alternating the two modes weekly over the total length of the study. The subtitles were provided in 20-minute intervals, allowing the comparison of subtitled and unsubtitled conditions. The researchers also took academic motivation and language proficiency into account, as these variables might account for individual differences.

The researchers analyzed the eye tracking data using Tobii Pro Lab software which showed that students paid minimal attention to the subtitles. This was unrelated to cognitive load since cognitive load was not enhanced by exposure to subtitles. Students reported that they found the delay in respeaking distracting and generally preferred automatic speech recognition-generated subtitles. It is important to note that the English proficiency of the study participants was high, which may explain why they did not find the subtitles useful.

The next step in the research will be to examine the effect of the subtitles on students with differing English proficiency levels. This would help to show whether subtitles could have demonstrable benefits when students with different English proficiency attend lectures.

Using Tobii Pro Glasses 3 in this study allowed the researchers to compare students’ self-perceptions with objective results: for example, perceived cognitive load vs. measured cognitive load through objective indicators, or perceived attention allocation to the subtitles vs. measured attention allocation through objective indicators.

Yanou shared a few tips for setting up classroom study with an eye tracker:

• Strategically distribute eye tracking glasses among the students in the classroom to ensure everyone has a clear view of the learning environment.
• To use multiple glasses simultaneously, connect the glasses to a laptop using a cable to avoid interference.
• Make your laptop “Tobii proof” by installing the relevant software ensuring your laptop is compatible with the glasses.

Related information

Learn more about their research.

Footnote

¹Respeaker is someone who repeats the words of a speaker, including punctuation marks, to a speech recognition software that converts the repeated words into written text, so into subtitles.