Gaming the system

Baker et al (2006) defines gaming the system as "Attempting to succeed in an interactive learning environment by exploiting properties of the system rather than by learning the material".

Within intelligent tutoring systems such as Cognitive Tutors, this is usually done by systematic guessing or hint abuse.

Gaming has been observed in other types of learning environments as well, including educational games (Miller, Lehman, & Koedinger, 1999; Magnussen & Misfeldt, 2004; Rodrigo et al, 2007), simulation environments (Rodrigo et al, 2007), and graded-participation newsgroups (Cheng & Vassileva, 2005).

Gaming the System has been shown to be associated with the affective experiences of boredom and confusion (Rodrigo et al, 2007) -- in specific, a student who experiences either of these two affective states is significantly more likely to be gaming the system shortly afterwards. Frustration, though previously found to be associated with gaming (Baker et al, 2008), appears to co-occur with gaming behavior rather than preceding it.

A variety of stable or semi-stable student characteristics have been studied in relation to gaming the system (e.g. Arroyo & Woolf, 2005; Baker et al, 2008; Beal, Qu, & Lee, 2009); however, these characteristics have generally been found to have weak correlations with gaming, at best. Some characteristics found to be significantly associated with gaming include negative attitudes towards computers, the learning software, and mathematics. Performance goals and anxiety have been repeatedly found to have no correlation to gaming (Baker et al, 2008).

For more information, see Ryan Baker's webpage on gaming the system.

PSLC Studies Involving Gaming the System

• How Content and Interface Features Influence Student Choices Within the Learning Space (Baker, Corbett, Koedinger, & Rodrigo)

Bibliography

• Baker, R.S.J.d., Corbett, A.T., Roll, I., Koedinger, K.R. (to appear) Developing a Generalizable Detector of When Students Game the System To appear in User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction. pdf
• Baker, R.S.J.d., Corbett, A.T., Koedinger, K.R., Evenson, E., Roll, I., Wagner, A.Z., Naim, M., Raspat, J., Baker, D.J., Beck, J. (2006). Adapting to When Students Game an Intelligent Tutoring System. 8th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, 392-401. pdf
• Baker, R. S., Corbett, A. T., Koedinger, K. R., & Wagner, A. Z. (2004). Off-Task Behavior in the Cognitive Tutor Classroom: When Students “Game the System”. ACM CHI 2004: Computer-Human Interaction, 383-390. pdf
• Baker, R.S.J.d., Walonoski, J.A., Heffernan, N.T., Roll, I., Corbett, A.T., Koedinger, K.R. (2008) Why Students Engage in "Gaming the System" Behavior in Interactive Learning Environments. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 19 (2), 185-224. pdf
• Beal, C. R., Qu, L., & Lee, H. (2009). Mathematics motivation and achievement as predictors of high school students' guessing and help-seeking with instructional software. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.
• Cheng, R., Vassileva, J. (2005) Adaptive Reward Mechanism for Sustainable Online Learning Community. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, 152-159.
• Magnussen, R., Misfeldt, M. (2004) Player Transformation of Educational Multiplayer Games. Proceedings of Other Players. Available at http://www.itu.dk/op/proceedings.htm
• Miller, C.S., Lehman, J.F., Koedinger, K.R. (1999) Goals and learning in microworlds - An exploration. Cognitive Science, 23 (3), 305-336.
• Murray, R.C., vanLehn, K. (2005) Effects of Dissuading Unnecessary Help Requests While Providing Proactive Help. Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education, 887-889.
• Rodrigo, M.M.T., Baker, R.S.J.d., Lagud, M.C.V., Lim, S.A.L., Macapanpan, A.F., Pascua, S.A.M.S., Santillano, J.Q., Sevilla, L.R.S., Sugay, J.O., Tep, S., Viehland, N.J.B. (2007) Affect and Usage Choices in Simulation Problem Solving Environments. Proceedings of Artificial Intelligence in Education 2007, 145-152.

pdf

• Walonoski, J.A., Heffernan, N.T. (2006a) Detection and Analysis of Off-Task Gaming Behavior in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, 382-391.
• Walonoski, J.A., Heffernan, N.T. (2006b) Prevention of Off-Task Gaming Behavior in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems, 722-724.