A preliminary study for elucidation of raters’ thought processes using fNIRS (functional Near-InfraRed Spec-troscopy) in classroom evaluation

Abstract

In this paper, we compared the changes in the blood oxygen saturation in the bilateral prefrontal cortex before and after the occurrence of the evaluation behavior and the thinking process of the evaluators when the class was evaluated by watching a VTR of the actual class. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the total number of evaluative behaviors among the participants, but there was a characteristic response to the fNIRS measure during evaluative behaviors between those with teaching experience and those with teaching experience. In addition, it is suggested that teaching experience students tend to take a top-down approach to evaluating the professional skills of others based on their own past experiences, while teaching learners tend to take a bottom-up approach depending on the situation. We believe that these findings may contribute to the way of professional training and post-graduate education in medical, educational, and welfare fields by adding further studies in the future.