Comparing “In the Wild” Studies with Laboratory Experiments: A Case of Educational Interactive Tabletops

Abstract

In this paper, we describe our attempt at implementing an interactive learning activity on a multi-touch tabletop in an actual college classroom. In our previous in-lab experimental study, we found that this tabletop learning activity outperformed the same learning task on paper. Students had a higher quality of collaboration and learnt more when interacting with an interactive multi-touch tabletop display. Here we compare those results with an "in the wild" implementation of our system. We found that learning gains were significantly lower in the classroom compared to a laboratory setting. Our paper investigates this difference and suggests reasons for such a discrepancy.