Learning, in any situation, comes with a cognitive effort, also in the Synchronous Web Conferencing context. Therefore, cognitive load is to be expected, a mandatory workload called germane cognitive load (GCL). How information is composed may cause extraneous cognitive load (ECL), and the complexity of the information, intrinsic cognitive load (ICL).

ICL may be caused by the design of digital tool features or the instructional design of pedagogical assets. ECL, on the other hand, may occur due to attention being split and drawn to several phenomena, a reported condition of web conferencing. Split attention causes the mind to assess what is more interesting or important, and to suppress the lesser, while still being distracted by external cues to perception, e.g. audiovisual disturbances.

An efficient and unintrusive method for discovering split attention and cognitive load is eye-tracking, since eye data presents gaze patterns that reveal confusion or distraction, and pupil dilation which indicate cognitive load. Also, it is easy to add other data categories to an eye-tracking experiment, such as an interview or a questionnaire, which can provide input on reasons for cognitive load or split attention.

Another viable addition to the method is a cognitive test, e.g. the 2nd Ed. of the Test of Memory and Learning (TOMAL-2) that is modified to the Synchronous Web Conferencing situation, to assess how much is understood and remembered by participants. Thus, it is possible to see if there are systematic correlations between the synchronous web conferencing situation, and memory and understanding.

Therefore, a suggested methodology is to combine eye-tracking with a TOMAL-2 test and a qualitative open questionnaire, applied to a situation, in order to capture audiovisual disturbances that split attention, ICL and/or ECL, as well as the reasons for these.

Keywords: Synchronous Web Conferencing, Cognitive Load, Attention split, Eye-tracking.