Work

Real-time and personalized dry EEG neurofeedback increased students’ attention during online teaching in everyday life conditions

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Attention tracking in education can serve as a valuable tool for both students and teachers, particularly in the context of online learning. The objectives of our study were to establish the feasibility of developing a non-medical and low-cost dry-EEG neurofeedback system for the general public, usable in everyday life, out of the laboratory, with no need for further expert neurophysiological assistance, in order primarily to monitor and secondarily to optimize the attention levels of university students while watching e-learning videos. A neuromarker for attention was successfully determined using wearable electroencephalography (EEG) in real-life conditions. Assessing the pedagogical benefits of two types of multimodal neurofeedback, either personalized (for each student based on their individual attention level) or aggregate (identical for all students based on a previous cohort’s average attention level), we demonstrated that personalized neurofeedback significantly increased students’ attention levels following an attention drop. On the contrary, the aggregate neurofeedback yielded no positive impact on attention and was perceived as disruptive. This study underlines the feasibility and benefits of providing personalized feedback tailored to individual students during online learning in everyday life conditions, outside of the laboratory.

Source: Neurocomputing

DOI: 10.1016/j.neucom.2025.132045