There is a tendency to think of the impact of educational technology in a vacuum. However, it is likely that the instructional context in which educational technology is used affects student learning. For instance, outcomes may differ when using educational technology in a classroom versus at home, in a quiet versus noisy environment, or in a context where support is readily available versus not available. The COVID-19 pandemic provided an unexpected opportunity to explore this issue. Intending to explore how providing hints and feedback within a digital learning game (Decimal Point) impacts mathematics learning, we instead found ourselves exploring a new question: How did learning with the game differ between classrooms and at home? After two of five middle schools had participated in our classroom experiment, we switched to at-home use of the Internet-based game for the final three schools due to the pandemic. The different instructional settings led to significantly different completion rates, likely due to students in the classroom (N = 151) being monitored by experimenters and teachers (completion rate of 88.8%), while students at home (N = 126) were not monitored nor strictly required to finish (completion rate of 56.5%). In addition, the two versions of the game, one that provided students with on-request hints and error feedback (Hint condition) and one that did not (No-Hint condition), led to different classroom versus at-home results. On the delayed posttest, students in the No-Hint condition did significantly better in the classroom, while there was no significant difference between conditions at home. In addition, students in the Hint condition used significantly more hints in the classroom than they did at home. There was also a significant effect of gender in the classroom, with female students out-performing male students on the immediate posttest, but with no effect of gender remotely. We performed post-hoc analyses to better understand students’ learning processes and gameplay behaviors. In summary, our study clearly illustrates how educational technology can be sensitive to instructional context, yet just cracks open the door to much more research on this topic.

人们倾向于在真空中思考教育技术的影响。然而，使用教育技术的教学环境很可能会影响学生的学习。例如，在课堂与在家、安静与嘈杂的环境中，或者在支持容易获得与无法获得支持的环境中使用教育技术时，结果可能会有所不同。COVID-19 大流行提供了一个意想不到的机会来探索这个问题。打算探索如何在数字学习游戏中提供提示和反馈（小数点）) 影响数学学习，我们反而发现自己在探索一个新问题：在课堂上和在家中通过游戏学习有何不同？在五所中学中的两所参加了我们的课堂实验后，由于大流行，我们将最后三所学校改为在家使用基于互联网的游戏。不同的教学环境导致完成率显着不同，这可能是因为课堂上的学生 (N = 151) 受到实验者和教师的监控（完成率为 88.8%），而在家中的学生 (N = 126) 既没有受到监控，也没有受到监控。严格要求完成（完成率为 56.5%）。此外，游戏的两个版本，一个为学生提供应要求的提示和错误反馈（提示条件），一个不提供（无提示条件），导致课堂与家庭结果不同。在延迟后测中，No-Hint条件下的学生在课堂上的表现明显更好，而在家中的条件之间没有显着差异。此外，提示中的学生条件在课堂上使用的提示比在家里使用的要多得多。课堂中的性别也有显着影响，女学生在即时后测中的表现优于男学生，但远程性别没有影响。我们进行了事后分析，以更好地了解学生的学习过程和游戏行为。总而言之，我们的研究清楚地说明了教育技术如何对教学环境敏感，但只是为更多关于该主题的研究打开了大门。