Using thermal imaging to measure mental effort: Does the nose know?
Key Points
- Impact Statement: Thermal imaging methods have been used by a small group of engineers and are relatively unknown among educational and psychological researchers. Thermal imaging methods have the potential to address a long-standing problem in related to the objective measurement of enagage/effort and disengagement/fatigue during testing.
- Student test performance reflects a mix of ability (knowledge) and effort.
- Difficulties in defining and measuring the degree of effort that students put forth in any assessment undermine the optimal use of assessment data.
- We describe a literature that has considered the use of thermal imaging technology as a strategy for objectively measuring effort during testing.
- Thermal imaging methods have the potential to overcome specific limitations of measuring student effort using subjective self-reports or wearable sensors.
- Thermal imaging methods may open new possibilities for both student assessment and personalized learning protocols.
Abstract
A ubiquitous assumption in educational and psychological assessments is that student performance reflects ability or knowledge of what is being tested. Despite this assumption, in practice, student test performance reflects a mix of ability (knowledge) and effort. “Effort” refers to a range of motivational, dispositional, and energetic factors that contribute to student performance and that are distinct from ability (knowledge). Difficulties in operationally defining and measuring the degree of effort that students put forth in any assessment undermine the optimal use of assessment data. In this research brief, we describe a small literature that has considered the use of thermal imaging technology as a strategy for objectively measuring effort during testing. We consider challenges and opportunities for applying this technology to educational and psychological assessments.
© 2026 RTI International. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Timothy S. Slade
Timothy S. Slade
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Carmen Strigel
