Key Takeaways
- Mississippi State University-Meridian is employing Tobii Pro 3 eye‑tracking glasses to study how nursing students visually attend to and process high‑pressure simulation scenarios.
- The interdisciplinary project, led by engineering professor Jessica Gonzalez‑Vargas and undergraduate researcher Kayla Pigott, compares students’ eye‑movement patterns with those of experienced clinicians to pinpoint gaps in visual attention and cognitive workload.
- Early findings suggest that eye‑tracking data can reveal proficiency levels before students enter real clinical settings, offering a objective metric for tailoring instruction.
- Researchers aim to leverage the results to secure federal funding for expanding simulation‑based training tools across the health‑science curriculum.
- Faculty and students praise the university’s Interprofessional Simulation Center as a premier facility that enables rigorous data collection and enhances student confidence and patient‑care readiness.
Project Overview and Objectives
The initiative, titled “Examining Indicators of Visual Attention, Cognitive Workload and Self‑Efficacy in Intrapartum and Postpartum Simulation‑Based Nursing Training,” launched in 2025 at MSU‑Meridian. Its primary goal is to merge engineering expertise with healthcare simulation to understand how learners perceive, process, and react during stressful clinical simulations. By quantifying visual attention and cognitive load, the team hopes to redesign training methodologies that more closely mirror real‑world expert performance.
Leadership and Student Involvement
Jessica Gonzalez‑Vargas, an assistant professor in the Bagley College of Engineering’s Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, serves as the principal investigator. She guides the research design, data analysis, and dissemination of results. Undergraduate Kayla Pigott, a senior industrial and systems engineering major from Lake Jackson, Texas, is spearheading data collection through a Bagley College of Engineering undergraduate research grant. Pigott’s hands‑on role includes setting up equipment, running simulation sessions, and ensuring data integrity.
Technology and Data Collection Methods
Researchers employ Tobii Pro 3 eye‑tracking glasses, which capture pupil dilation, fixation duration, saccadic movements, and gaze trajectories in real time. During each simulation exercise—ranging from labor and delivery scenarios to postpartum care—Pigott records the visual behavior of nursing students. These metrics are later compared with data gathered from seasoned clinicians performing the same tasks, allowing the team to identify where novices diverge from expert patterns.
Insights Gained from Eye‑Tracking Metrics
Pigott explains that the technology “lets us see the difference in how experts track work in the real world, and how students track in simulations.” By analyzing fixation points, the team can determine whether students are focusing on critical cues (e.g., fetal heart monitor tracings) or becoming distracted by irrelevant elements. Pupil dilation serves as an indirect measure of cognitive workload; larger pupils often indicate higher mental effort or stress. Combining these indicators provides a nuanced picture of proficiency that goes beyond traditional check‑list assessments.
Implications for Nursing Education
Katherine Rigdon, associate teaching professor of nursing, emphasizes that tools like eye tracking “make a lasting difference in nursing education.” The objective data enable educators to pinpoint specific moments where a student’s clinical judgement falters, allowing for targeted debriefing and remediation. Over time, this feedback loop can strengthen students’ self‑efficacy, reduce anxiety in high‑stakes situations, and ultimately translate into safer patient care.
Facility Strengths and Collaborative Environment
Both Gonzalez‑Vargas and Pigott laud the quality of MSU‑Meridian’s Interprofessional Simulation Center, describing it as a “tremendous opportunity” and a “fantastic facility.” The center’s high‑fidelity manikins, realistic clinical environments, and integrated audiovisual systems create an ideal setting for capturing reliable eye‑tracking data. Alaina Herrington, MSU‑Meridian director of simulation and clinical affairs, notes that the university’s deep‑rooted engineering expertise positions it uniquely to design and build the next generation of medical training tools on campus.
Dissemination of Findings and Future Directions
Pigott recently presented the first set of findings at MSU’s Undergraduate Engineering Research Symposium in Starkville, highlighting initial differences in gaze patterns between student nurses and experienced clinicians. She plans to continue data collection with additional cohorts, refining the analysis pipeline and exploring correlations between eye‑tracking metrics and traditional performance scores. The team hopes that robust evidence will attract federal grants to scale the project, potentially incorporating adaptive learning algorithms that adjust simulation difficulty based on real‑time cognitive load readings.
Broader Impact on Healthcare Training
By bridging engineering measurement techniques with clinical education, the MSU‑Meridian project exemplifies how interdisciplinary collaboration can advance pedagogical strategies. The insights gained may inform curriculum redesign not only for nursing but also for other health‑profession programs that rely on simulation‑based training. Ultimately, the work aims to produce practitioners who are not only technically competent but also adept at allocating attention and managing stress—critical competencies for delivering high‑quality patient care in dynamic clinical environments.