Wearables for tracking mental state in the classroom: ethical considerations from the literature and high school students

Anke Snoek^1*Anne-Marie Brouwer²Ivo Stuldreher²Pim Haselager³Dorothee Horstkötter⁴

• ¹Ethics, Law and Medical Humanities, Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• ²TNO, Innovation for life, Apeldoorn, Netherlands
• ³Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
• ⁴Health, ethics and society, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands

Educational practice increasingly makes use of technology to improve teaching and learning. New wearable technology is being developed that measures mental states like attention and stress, through neurophysiological signals like electroencephalography (EEG), electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate. However, little is known about the ethical aspects of this technology. We provide an overview of current ethical considerations on such wearable technologies in classroom settings and analyze these critically. We distinguished three ethical angles to analyze new technologies: epistemic, principle-based, and Foucauldian. We focus on a Foucauldian analysis, outlining how such technologies affect power relationships and self-understanding, but also which responses people develop to evade power. In addition, a focus group of high school students was set up to identify young people's views on such wearable technology and to initiate a reflection on the theory-based ethical considerations. Our study shows that although wearables may provide information on learning and attention, and even though possible users are enthusiastic about the potential, there are several risks of applying such technologies in educational settings. These risks concern governance and surveillance, normalization and exclusion, placing technology before pedagogy, stimulating neoliberal values and quantified self-understanding, and possible negative impact on identity for those who think they are outside of the norm. Highschool students highlighted that people are not only subjected to new technologies, but also subject these technologies to their own goals. We end with a discussion on the perils of implementing new technologies, and provide an alternative to prohibition in the form of co-creating and educating. Any potential future implementation of mental state tracking technology is to be accompanied by normative discussions on legitimate aims, on rights, interests and needs of both pupils, teachers and educational institutions, taking broader debates on what should count as a good pedagogical climate into account.