Meeting AbstractExploring Viewing Behavior Data from Whole Slide Images toPredict Correctness of Students’ Answers during Practical Examsin Oral Pathology

Slawomir Walkowski,1 Mikael Lundin,2 Janusz Szymas,3 and Johan Lundin2

1 Poznan University of Technology, M. Sklodowska-Curie Square 5, 60-965 Poznan, Poland2 Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 20, 00014 Helsinki, Finland3Department of Clinical Pathology, Poznan University of Medical Sciences, Przybyszewski Street 49, 60-355 Poznan, Poland

Correspondence should be addressed to Slawomir Walkowski; slawowski@gmail.com

Received 2 September 2014; Accepted 2 September 2014

Copyright © 2014 Slawomir Walkowski et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons AttributionLicense, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properlycited.

Background

The use of whole slide images (WSIs) allows tracking andrecording how a histological slide is viewed. Gathered dataabout viewing behavior while interpreting WSIs may resultin a variety of analyses. When the tracking is done during anexam, we can discover how students view WSIs. Moreover,we may try to correlate their way of viewing slides withcorrectness of the answers they give. Particularly, we canpotentially find out to what extent a specific viewing behavioris likely to result in a correct or incorrect answer from astudent.

Method

To record viewing behavior, we utilized a software-based viewpath trackingmethod, which does not require any specializedequipment. It gathers information about subsequently viewedfragments (view fields) ofWSIs.Themethod was used duringexams in oral pathology in Poznan University of MedicalSciences in Poznan, Poland, in years 2012-2013. Each dentalstudent was given 50 exam questions with a WSI attachedto each of them. The students were informed about andagreed on the tracking. Stored data and further analysisresults are anonymous and so far without any impact onthe final students’ evaluation and scores. The WSI viewingsystem used during the exam was WebMicroscope (Fimmic

Ltd, Helsinki, Finland) and the view path tracking method isan integrated, but optional, part of it. In total, we collectedinformation about approximately 130,000 view fields comingfrom about 180 dental students viewing WSIs during theexams. Gathered data was analyzed numerically, with somehelp from generated visualizations. A set of statistics wascalculated per student per question and it included, forexample, number of view fields, magnification level, anddispersion of view fields. Statistical methods were usedto assess the correlation between calculated metrics andcorrectness of students’ answers. We also utilized machinelearning approaches to check towhat extent viewing behaviordata can be used to predict a correct or incorrect answercoming from a student. For this purpose, we used gatheredand processed data as a labeled set of instances.

Results

Two exams were successfully conducted with the view pathtracking turned on, which resulted in a dataset coveringstudents’ WSI viewing behavior. The aggregated metricsdepicted certain viewing patterns. Analysis of the calculatedstatistics allowed finding some correlations between metricsvalues and exam answers. When used as features for machinelearning, the metrics helped estimate probabilities of answerscorrectness.

Hindawi Publishing CorporationAnalytical Cellular PathologyVolume 2014, Article ID 706470, 2 pageshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/706470

2 Analytical Cellular Pathology

Conclusion

Software-based view path tracking appears to be a usefulmethod of discovering WSI viewing behavior and investigat-ing decision making process of dental students who take apractical exam in oral pathology. Analysis of collected dataprovides interesting insights into how the slides are viewed,how the viewing patterns correlate with students’ answers,and what the potential of the view path tracking data is whenpredicting correctness of the answers.

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