Who's in Control?: Categorizing Nuanced Patterns of Behaviors within a Game-Based Intelligent Tutoring System

The authors use dynamical analyses to investigate the relation between students’ patterns of interactions with various types of game-based features and their daily performance. High school students (n=40) interacted with a game-based intelligent tutoring system across eight sessions. Hurst exponents were calculated based on students’ choice of interactions with four types of gamebased features: generative practice, identification mini-games, personalizable features, and achievement screens. These exponents indicate the extent to which students’ interaction patterns with game-based features are random or deterministic (i.e., controlled). Results revealed a positive relation between deterministic behavior patterns and daily performance measures. Further analyses indicated that students’ propensity to interact in a controlled manner varied as a function of their commitment to learning. Overall, these results provide insight into the potential relations between students’ pattern of choices, individual differences in learning commitment, and daily performance in a learning environment.