Off-Task Behavior

Baker (2007) defines off-task behavior in learning environments as behavior "where a student completely disengages from the learning environment and task to engage in an unrelated behavior".

Recent studies have suggested that off-task behavior is associated with poorer learning in individual use of Cognitive Tutors (Baker, Corbett, Koedinger, & Wagner, 2004; Baker, 2007) but with positive effects on learning in collaborative use of learning software (Kumar et al, 2007)

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).

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. (2007) Modeling and Understanding Students' Off-Task Behavior in Intelligent Tutoring Systems. Proceedings of ACM CHI 2007: Computer-Human Interaction, 1059-1068. 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
• Kumar, R., Gweon, G., Joshi, M., Cui, Y., Rosé, C.P. (2007) Supporting students working together on Math with Social Dialogue, Workshop on Speech and Language Technology in Education, Farmington, Pennsylvania, 2007.