Development of an Automatic Measurement System of Diameter of Pupil - As an Indicator of Comprehension among Web-based Learners

While web-based learning has opened educational opportunities to more people in more situations, it has also introduced a number of problems related to independent, online interaction with learning material. One of the most challenging of these problems is the general inability of web-based learning systems to measure (and maintain) levels of comprehension among web-based learners. Although webcam-based measurement of blinking frequency can give us some indication of a subject's concentration level, it has proven to be an unreliable indicator of a subject's level of comprehension. To supplement such measurement, we herein propose a system that measures proportional changes in pupil diameter, as an improved indicator of comprehension level. Initial experimental suggest that the system can reliably distinguish between subjects who succeeded and failed in solving a mathematical problem.