'Gaming the system' in Newton's Playground

This paper describes the current status of ongoing research looking into students’ “gaming the system” behaviors in an open-ended learning environment—the game Newton’s Playground—in relation to their physics learning, enjoyment of the game, and persistence. Our next step is to code students’ gaming behaviors and then compare learning via pretest and posttest scores. We’ll also examine gaming behaviors relative to enjoyment of the game and persistence. Findings can inform improvements to Newton’s Playground (and other games) and guide the design of scaffolding for students in other OELEs.