In digital learning systems, gaming the system refers to occasions when students attempt to succeed in an educational task by systematically taking advantage of system features rather than engaging meaningfully with the content. Often viewed as a form of behavioral disengagement, gaming the system is negatively associated with short- and long-term learning outcomes. However, little research has explored this phenomenon beyond its behavioral representation, leaving questions such as whether students are cognitively disengaged or whether they engage in different self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies when gaming largely unanswered. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to examine students' cognitive engagement and SRL processes during gaming versus non-gaming periods, using utterance length and SRL codes inferred from think-aloud protocols collected while students interacted with an intelligent tutoring system for chemistry. We found that gaming does not simply reflect a lack of cognitive effort; during gaming, students often produced longer utterances, were more likely to engage in processing information and realizing errors, but less likely to engage in planning, and exhibited reactive rather than proactive self-regulatory strategies. These findings provide empirical evidence supporting the interpretation that gaming may represent a maladaptive form of SRL. With this understanding, future work can address gaming and its negative impacts by designing systems that target maladaptive self-regulation to promote better learning.

翻译：在数字化学习系统中，“钻系统空子”指学生试图通过系统性地利用系统功能而非实质性参与学习内容来完成教育任务的行为。该行为通常被视为一种行为脱离形式，并与短期及长期学习成果呈负相关。然而，现有研究大多仅关注其行为表征，对于学生在“钻空子”时是否伴随认知脱离、是否采用不同的自我调节学习策略等问题仍缺乏深入探讨。本研究采用混合方法，通过分析学生在化学智能导学系统中交互时采集的出声思考协议，依据话语长度及推断的SRL编码，对比考察了学生在“钻空子”与非“钻空子”阶段的认知投入与SRL过程。研究发现，“钻系统空子”并非简单的认知努力缺失：在此过程中，学生往往产生更长的话语，更倾向于进行信息加工与错误觉察，但较少进行规划，且表现出反应性而非前瞻性的自我调节策略。这些结果为“钻系统空子”可能是一种适应不良的SRL形式这一解读提供了实证依据。基于此发现，未来研究可通过设计针对适应不良自我调节的系统来应对“钻空子”行为及其负面影响，从而促进更有效的学习。