How Children See Geometric Shapes: Eye-Movement Evidence of Developing Structural Reasoning

This study investigates how young children’s geometric reasoning develops through the act of drawing, examining how their eye movements, actions, and verbal explanations interact to reveal emerging structural awareness. Grounded in a developmental framework of structural reasoning, the study extends this model from static visual products to the dynamic processes involved in constructing geometric figures. Using an exploratory qualitative case study design, three children (ages 5.5–7.5) completed line, circle, and rectangle drawing tasks while their gaze and actions were recorded using mobile eye-tracking. Gaze data, video recordings, drawing product, and verbal responses were synchronized and analyzed frame by frame to examine gaze–action coordination. Analysis revealed a progression from partial structural awareness, where gaze remained embedded in action, to structural awareness, where gaze projected multiple steps ahead to coordinate global shape structure. Between these, an intermediate, process-oriented phase was identified, characterized by alternating gaze-in-activity and anticipatory fixations supporting local planning. These fine-grained gaze patterns reveal micro-level transitions in geometric reasoning that are not observable from final drawings alone. The study refines current models of geometric development by revealing how perceptual, representational, and embodied processes dynamically integrate during drawing, offering a more nuanced understanding of early structural reasoning and its implications for teaching geometry.