Search

When games are approached as a pedagogical methodology, the homologies between games and technical communication are highlighted: pedagogy that teaches people to play and succeed within certain confines; classroom assessment that provides meaningful feedback to encourage self-improvement; instructional design that incorporates gaming theory and game design principles; and usability to ensure optimum success. This article provides an overview of these topics for instructors to consider when designing a technical writing course as a game.

This study seeks to introduce a new lens through which applied linguistics might be better conceived of. Importantly enough, this lens has already found itself in a good many disciplines, but it can hardly ever be seen in language teaching. To this end, this paper has taken a stance akin to that of Larsen-Freeman, when for the first time chaos/complexity was introduced into second language acquisition. Thus, after reasoning the usefulness and meaningfulness of social dilemmas in applied linguistics, different conundrums in applied linguistics are viewed from a social dilemmas' lens, particularly through that of prisoner's dilemma. Importantly, instead of putting forward some answers to the dilemmas in applied linguistics, the study focuses on what exactly the problems are. Therefore, this very new lens gives us the chance to dissect the problems clearly, and subsequently some insights might be gained.

Noise is widely regarded as a residual category--the unexplained variance in a linear model or the random disturbance of a predictable pattern. Accordingly, formal models often impose the simplifying assumption that the world is noise-free and social dynamics are deterministic. Where noise is assigned causal importance, it is often assumed to be a source of inefficiency, unpredictability, or heterogeneity. We review recent sociological studies that are noteworthy for demonstrating the theoretical importance of noise for understanding the dynamics of a complex system. Contrary to widely held assumptions, these studies identify conditions in which noise can increase efficiency and predictability and reduce diversity. We conclude with a methodological warning that deterministic assumptions are not an innocent simplification.

Darwin's theory of evolution is explicitly competitive, yet co-operation between individuals is a common phenomenon. The Prisoner's Dilemma model is central to the teaching of the evolution of co-operation. The best-known explorations of the Prisoner's Dilemma are the tournaments run by Robert Axelrod in the 1980s. Aimed at students of biological or behavioural science (post-compulsory education), this paper proposes a simplified, non-computer-based version of Axelrod's Tournament which allows students to explore the Prisoner's Dilemma using different behavioural strategies. In this classroom exercise, students become the players in a repeated Prisoner's Dilemma situation. They investigate the outcomes of different strategies of play using a simple scoring system. After each generation of play, students discuss the evolutionary success of the strategies--strategies that score poorly are discarded and replaced with those that score well. Four generations of play are suggested, after which "Tit for Tat" will have become the dominant strategy in the population, as it did during Axelrod's original tournaments. Students gain a basic understanding of the evolution of co-operation, and the associated written report encourages them to investigate the process in more depth.

We study the dynamics in an educational partnership between a university and a developing region. We examine how the university achieves its goals to improve and advertise its offerings while recruiting a cohort of students from the developing region and maintaining a sustainable relationship with the region and its students. We show that mutually beneficial partnerships can arise, particularly when both the university and the region exhibit strong preferences toward cohort students returning to work at home. We further show that such partnerships can induce developing regions to invest in domestic opportunities for returning students.

What could video games bring to a K-12 visual arts curriculum? Overby and Jones were skeptical about incorporating gaming and virtual worlds into the classroom, but watching their own children engaging in the video game Minecraft changed their perception. As they started researching the game and how these kids were operating within the space, they began pondering the possibility of how it might offer art educators a safe and user-friendly virtual learning environment. Furthermore, as many of the youth they observed were girls, they began considering how the game might empower girls to consider careers in technology, where males are dramatically overrepresented (Hayes, 2008). Gaming as a learning tool fits within the art education paradigm because of the aesthetic choices made during gameplay. Students learn about technology, teamwork, building, design, and more by using Minecraft as a learning tool.

How geographical neighboring competitors influence the strategic price behaviors of universities is still unclear because previous studies assume spatial independence between universities. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics college navigator dataset, this study shows that the price of one university is spatially autocorrelated to its neighboring competitors and such neighborhood structure induces cooperation Nash equilibrium in a spatial price game. In the spatial price game of universities the possibility of the cooperation solution is about 76%, while that of the defeat solution is about 24%. This study demonstrates that the relation between price difference and geographical distance of universities is an inverse U-shaped curve rather than a line.

Background: Over the last 30 years, traditional skill-based game teaching models have gradually been supplemented by instruction under an inclusive banner of "Teaching Games for Understanding" (TGfU). This approach focuses on developing tactical understanding through modified games and a philosophy that places the learner rather than the game at the centre of instruction. A recent paper by Grehaigne, Caty, and Godbout, "Modelling Ball Circulation in Invasion Team Sports: A Way to Promote Learning Games Through Understanding", had a threefold focus: (1) to report the results of a qualitative study on various offensive configurations of football play observed in Physical Education (PE) lessons with young novice players; (2) to propose a model of game play based on the analysis of such configurations of play; and (3) to promote a radical constructivist teaching approach based on "learning games through understanding" that challenges the long-established TGfU methodology. Purpose: This paper critically examines the contention of Grehaigne, Caty, and Godbout that the presentation of tactical data collected through the observation of novices playing sport in ill-structured domains, e.g. team games such as football, represent a useful pedagogical model that promotes "learning games through understanding", In rewording the familiar TGfU approach, and calling it "learning games through understanding", Grehaigne, Caty, and Godbout challenge the evolving TGfU approach as too solutions based and not sufficiently student centred. Discussion: This paper challenges the use of radical constructivism as a construct for the development of a philosophy for instructing novices in team games, in this instance, football. It defines ill-structured and well-structured learning domains and suggests that effective pedagogy, the art of teaching, requires flexible attitudes towards the choice of pedagogy in games. By inference, it also challenges Grehaigne, Caty, and Godbout's assumption that the TGfU models previously published, e.g. TGfU, Game Sense, Play Practice, and interpreted in various texts, e.g. "Transforming Play, Teaching Tactics and Game Sense", are not student-centred and teacher dominated. Conclusions: Grehaigne, Caty, and Godbout's work is important in the evolution of models of game instruction for use in PE contexts. The concept of "learning games through understanding" is a timely reminder of the importance of pedagogies, for example, guided or discovery learning that induce effortful thinking. However, if we consider TGfU in its true philosophical light, that is, as a holistic and experiential approach to teaching, then it already encompasses "learning games through understanding". Because no two students learn or conceive knowledge in exactly the same way, teaching contexts require a flexible approach to instruction, based on a methodological continuum of empirical to radical constructivism. In short, providing novice learners with sufficient opportunities to learn, requires flexibility and a holistic experiential approach to teaching that is appropriate for the learner, activity and context.

Two studies investigated young 2- and 3-year-old Turkish children's developing understanding of normativity and freedom to act in games. As expected, children, especially 3-year-olds, protested more when there was a norm violation than when there was none. Surprisingly, however, no decrease in normative protest was observed even when the actor violated the norms due to a physical constraint, and not due to unwillingness. The increase in helping responses in this case lends support to the idea that at these ages, children could not yet incorporate an actor's freedom to act in line with his will as they respond to norm transgressions. The results of the two studies are discussed in the light of two general research issues: a) the importance of cross-cultural research, and b) the interaction of the cognitive system with the emotional-empathic system in development.

Gamification is the use of game mechanics to drive game-like engagements and actions. It applies game mechanics, dynamics and frameworks to promote desired learning behaviours. Positive and effective gamification could enhance learning and engage learners in more social and context-rich decision-making for problem-solving in learning tasks. Effective gamification design should understand the game personalities of learners, social engagement styles, and intrinsic- and extrinsic-motivated user styles initially and evaluate and select appropriate game mechanics, game dynamics, to create ideal gamification instructions. The research question this study investigated is: How will four types of gaming personalities (i.e. Explorer, Socialiser, Killer and Achiever) predict the level of game dynamics in online discussion environments? This study concluded that examining how gaming personalities relate to game dynamics in a gamified online discussion instruction is not sufficient to design effective gamification. It suggests future studies in game instructions should focus on the relationships between game dynamics, gamification contexts, gaming personalities or preferences, dynamic gaming engagement styles, etc.

What constitutes appropriate practice in physical education? NASPE suggests the outcome of a physical education program should be that adolescents have gained the skills and knowledge to be physically active for a lifetime. Furthermore, a physically educated person consistently demonstrates responsible personal and social behavior in physical activity settings. The question thus becomes, how do physical education teachers accommodate all of these aspects of appropriate practice into a single unified integrated system that includes equal emphasis on the physical, cognitive, and affective aspects of physical education? My contention is that the answer lies in what I shall refer to as the Socratic gymnasium. The main pillars of the Socratic gymnasium are the combined utilization of a tactical games approach (TGA), sport education (SE), and teaching personal and social responsibility (TPSR), all of which are constructivist instructional models.

Digital gaming communities are nuanced and developing. The eSports community has advanced in noticeable ways and represents the highest form of online competitive play for digital gaming environments. Due to the high stakes nature of eSports, its participants sit on the very edge of strategic planning boundaries and push the ceiling of developmental limitations of human capacity in digital game play. The skills developed overlap with several admirable career readiness skills in our Information Age (Hein & Engerman, 2016). The authors share the nuanced cultural habits of the eSports community and briefly overview connections to 21st Century skills development and career readiness.

Young learners' use of instructional games in foreign language learning is not yet well understood. Using games that were part of the learning tools for an online assessment, Jido-Eiken, a standardized English proficiency test for young learners in Japan, we examined young learners' game-playing behaviours and the relationship of these behaviours with learning outcomes. The participants were 3,945 children aged 4 to 12. We found that games that children played with relative frequency tended to share a set of features, including being cognitively demanding, evoking one's curiosity, offering greater player control, and having multiple players. The frequency of plays decreased as the age increased in many games that we examined, but gender differences were hardly observed. We found different relational patterns between young learners' game scores and English performance depending on the games and difficulty levels of the assessment. We discuss the implications for instructional game developers and teachers of young language learners.

Games have played an important role in modern educational methodologies. Beginning with the work of luminaries like Froebel, Montessori, and Dewey and continuing through the Cold War, the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and '70s, and into the present day, shifts in educational practice can be traced historically using the lens of games, where concepts like play, win strategies, cooperation, and engagement figure prominently in curricular structures. The author investigates how games have been discussed in art education literature, linking how the use of games in art educational environments significantly reflects the sociopolitical contexts of the 20th century.

This paper explores the value of the "Game of Kings," Chess, as a tool for developing highly successful leaders. This paper highlights and demonstrates how the methods of the game of Chess can have strong influence on the ability and performance of exceptional leaders in any field, and how the game of Chess can enhance the cognitive capacity of those in leadership, beginning at a young age, to improve their mental capacity in a world experiencing diverse change in this new millenium. The authors come to the conclusion that in order to bridge the gap between scholarship and entrepreneurship, and to build better leaders capable of handling future demands; the well-researched and powerful tool of Chess should be incorporated into the early grade curriculum, as well as in graduate leadership, business, industrial, and educational programs. Chess can be the catalyst to enhance the skills of graduates and leaders alike to remain competitive in a global economy.

In this article, the authors investigate competitive firm behaviors in a two-firm environment assuming linear cost and demand functions. By introducing conjectural variations, they capture the different market structures as specific configurations of a more general model. Conjectural variations are based on the assumption that each firm believes its own strategy influences its rival's strategy. Firms derive their optimal choice from these exogenous conjectures, under the form of a conjectural best-response function. The authors' approach fully encompasses the standard measures of market power (the Lerner Index) and concentration (the Herfindahl Index), both depending on the conjectural variations. They finally represent, analytically and graphically, the equilibrium strategies and the associated indexes in a unified framework for any level of competition, ranging from perfect competition to collusion.

Guided by evolutionary game theory (Korte, Koolhaas, Wingfield, & McEwen, 2005), this study aimed to identify the genetic precursors and the psychosocial sequelae of inhibited temperament in a sociodemographically disadvantaged and racially diverse sample (N = 201) of 2-year-old children who experienced elevated levels of domestic violence. Using a multimethod, prospective design across 3 annual measurement occasions, the authors conducted structural equation modeling analyses indicating that trained observer ratings of inhibited temperament at age 2 were uniquely predicted by polymorphisms in dopamine and serotonin transporter genes. Children's inhibited temperament, in turn, indirectly predicted decreases in their externalizing problems at age 4 through its association with greater behavioral flexibility at age 3. Results highlight the value of integrating evolutionary and developmental conceptualizations in more comprehensively charting the developmental cascades of inhibited temperament.

The modern era of professional baseball playoffs began in 1903, when the champions of the American League and the National League played the first World Series. Except for one year, 1904, this playoff system was maintained until 1969. Beginning in 1969, each of the two leagues in Major League Baseball (MLB) was divided into two divisions to accommodate the addition of extra teams in each league. From then through 1993, the two divisional champions in each league played against each other in an initial playoff round to determine which teams would go on to the World Series. In 1994, as the result of more expansion, each league was reorganized into three divisions. To maintain a tidy playoff system, each league began sending a "wild card" team into the first of three rounds of playoffs. This wild-card team would simply be the best of the three second-place finishers and would join the three divisional winners in the first round of games. Ever since MLB began discussing the use of wild-card teams, controversy has ensued. Hall of Famer Johnny Bench was quoted as saying, "Someday, we'll have a team that wins the World Series without winning their own division" (Lawes 1992, p. 3). As recently as 2006, Pulitzer Prize nominee Rick Hummel complained, "Already baseball has been burned (some would say scarred) by the fact that three of the past four World Series winners have been wild card teams... Baseball needs to make it much harder for a wild card team" (Hummell 2006, p. C6). To understand the three-division playoff system, consider the final 2006 American League standings. The divisional champs--the New York Yankees, the Minnesota Twins, and the Oakland Athletics--advanced. Among the second-place teams, the Detroit Tigers had the highest winning percentage, even higher than Oakland's, and hence were labeled the wild-card team. In the playoffs, the wild-card Tigers defeated the Yankees and Athletics to advance to the World Series, where they lost to a division-winning St. Louis Cardinals team from the National League. The Cardinals had only the fifth-best record in the National League, but as winners of their division they advanced to the playoffs over two teams with better records. The purpose of this article is to use basic probability to support the idea of having wild-card teams in MLB playoffs. The authors develop a model for the years 1994 through 2011, when the American League had 14 teams, the National League had 16 teams, and each league sent one wild-card team to the playoffs. Using this model, they show that the wild-card team should probabilistically be better than at least one of the division winners, just as in 2006.

Many researchers have studied the effects of game-based learning (GBL) (eg, Annetta, Minogu, Holmes & Cheng, 2009; Kiili, 2007). However, empirical process analyses of long-term applications of GBL in a school setting are much less common. A process analysis of GBL in a school setting allows us to better understand the role of games in education and behavioral differences between students with different levels of prior knowledge and learning performance in GBL. The findings may serve as an important reference for designing adaptive GBL software. Online games are extremely popular among children, and their educational potential has also been evaluated in research (Hou, 2012). At the moment, however, there is little research dedicated to massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) developed for educational purposes. "Talking Island" (developed by Island Technology Co.) is an MMORPG designed to teach elementary school students English vocabulary and speaking and it includes most of elements found in large-scale commercial online games. The game provides realistic role-playing scenarios with various tasks. To complete a task and engage in battle, gamers are required to use a microphone to work with flash cards to learn the correct pronunciation and meaning of a word. The game utilizes voice recognition to determine whether a learner's pronunciation is correct and whether he or she can level up and complete a task. A study was conducted to examine the behaviors of the participants of that game and to discuss the game's advantages and limitations (Hou, 2012). The findings of this study indicate that an MMORPG that combines scenarios, problem-solving tasks and practice tasks can indeed facilitate students' learning to a certain degree (approximately 70%) instead of just providing entertainment. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

A reasoning strategy is iterative when the initial conclusion suggested by a set of premises is integrated into that set of premises in order to yield additional conclusions. Previous experimental studies on game theory-based strategic games (such as the beauty contest game) observed difficulty in reasoning iteratively, which has been partly attributed to bounded individual rationality. However, this difficulty has also been attributed to problems in adequately representing the beliefs, actions, and goals of other agents involved in the games. In four experiments, we observed similar difficulties in iterative reasoning in a variety of puzzles and games that did not involve social interactions with other agents, where they can only be caused by individual cognitive boundaries. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that an intrinsic difficulty in iterative reasoning originates from a tendency not to revise our initial mental representation of a problem in light of the initial conclusions that it implies. (Contains 5 tables and 4 figures.)

Attentiveness to and transparency about the methodological implications of the level of analysis selected for peace and conflict exercises constitute essential elements of good game design. The article explores the impact of level of analysis choices in the context of two key portions of exercises, scenario construction and role specification. It weighs the consequences of these choices in terms of the differing conclusions one can draw from exercises and potential pitfalls of careless choices. Finally, it argues that level of analysis considerations in game design parallels specific debates within segments of the social science literature, connections that are also explored in this article for their relevance to game design. (Contains 6 notes.)

The authors describe a classroom experiment designed to present the idea of two-sided matching, the concept of a stable assignment, and the Gale-Shapley deferred-acceptance mechanism. Participants need no prior training in economics or game theory, but the exercise will also interest trained economists and game theorists. (Contains 5 tables, 2 figures, and 5 notes.)

This paper provides a concept and a notation for optimizing the design of social processes in gaming and learning for individuals, groups of individuals and society as a whole. Traditional approaches to the mapping and designing of the emerging social dynamics in a joyful, social education setting have fallen short of producing desirable results due to the lack of joint consideration of social processes occurring in several dimensions and their intrinsic interconnectedness. This paper suggests writing down gaming procedures by means of musical score. Such a mapping strategy allows for heuristic analysis of the social dynamics occurring at the following four levels: logical information conveyed (S), team building (A), debate & discourse (T), and integration with others' experience (B). This paper then concludes by identifying a dynamic structure of learning frameworks that may be capable of delivering an optimal learning effect for both individual and collective learning endeavors.

The authors critically analyze how the concept of the drama triangle--part of the game theory associated with transactional analysis--can be used by post secondary instructors teaching online to build a sense of community and decrease students' dependence on instructors in discussion forums. The article begins with an overview of sense of community, followed by a detailed discussion on the drama triangle and its applicability to online instruction and discussion forum management. Observational data as an online instructor are presented in order to illustrate how drama triangle interactions in the online environment can stall sense of community formation. In addition, the authors provide online instructors with specific strategies for recognizing and avoiding instructor-student interactions that promote the rescuing, victim, and persecutor behaviors that detract from sense of community formation.

Workplace bullying or mobbing can be defined as the infliction of various forms of abuse (e.g., verbal, emotional, psychological) against a colleague or subordinate by one or more other members of a workplace. Even in the presence of academic tenure, workplace mobbing remains a prevalent issue in academe. This study develops an economic model that employs a Stackelberg differential game in order to analyze the interaction between a university administrator (or administrators) and a professor who is being "mobbed" by university administration, perhaps for political reasons related to the professor's use of academic freedom and/or tenure to publicly criticize the actions of university officials. One of the model's implications is that it is optimal for the professor to increase his or her research in order to increase job mobility when subjected to downward mobbing, and that the university administration may succeed in pushing out the tenured professor if the administration's mobbing actions are greater than a combination of professor's optimal salary and threshold quitting rate. In the long run, however, the institution and the administrator may lose if the professor leaves and his replacements do not keep up the research productivity. (Contains 2 tables.)

Digital games have matured substantially as a narrative medium in the last decade. However, there is still much work to be done to more fully understand the poetics of story-based-games. Game narrative remains an important issue with significant cultural, economic and scholarly implications. In this article, we undertake a critical analysis of the design of narrative within "Mass Effect 2": a game whose narrative is highly regarded in both scholarly and vernacular communities. We follow the classic humanities methodology of "close-reading": the detailed observation, deconstruction, and analysis of a text. Our close-reading employs a critical framework from our previous work to isolate and highlight the central narrative design parameters within digital games. This framework is grounded in the scholarly discourse around games and narrative, and has been tested and revised in the process of close-reading and analyzing contemporary games. The narrative design parameters we examine are character, storyworld, narrativized interface, emotion, and plot coherence. Our analysis uses these parameters to explicate a series of design decisions for the effective creation of narrative experience in "Mass Effect 2", and by extension, for game narratives in general. We also expand our previous methodology through a focused "edge-case" strategy for exploring the limits of character, action, and story in the game. Finally, we position our analysis of "Mass Effect 2" within contemporary discourses of "bounded agency", and explore how the game negotiates the tension between player-expression, and narrative inevitability to create opportunities for sophisticated narrative poetics including tragedy and sacrifice. (Contains 6 figures.)

Table top tennis is a game that can be played in the classroom or lunchroom when the gymnasium is unavailable. It is a good activity for developing sportspersonship and responsibility in students in grades four and up. This article provides a description of table top tennis, including basic rules and strategies; an explanation of how it can integrate features of the sport education curricular model (i.e., roles, responsibilities, etc.) to promote sportspersonship and responsibility; a sample round-robin schedule; an outline of a table top tennis season; and practical ways to assess students' sportspersonship and responsible behaviors through reflection. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.)

In large measure the authors agree with Tobias and Fletcher's (2012) comments stating that clearer operational definitions of game features are needed to enable research on games and learning. The authors cannot accept that games are a subset of simulations, preferring to identify instances when games and simulations overlap and when they do not. The authors caution that research focused solely on cognitive processes risks missing fundamental environmental dynamics and their rich interactions with the intentional dynamics of situated cognition. The authors point out that their specific review of games and academic achievement is complemented by the broader survey of dependent variables reviewed by Tobias and Fletcher.

This paper reports the effects of game technology on student learning in mathematics as investigated in two data sets collected from slightly different subjects. In the first, 41 second graders (7 or 8 years old) from two classes used either a technology-based game or a paper-based game for 5 weeks. For the next 13 weeks, both classes used a technology-based game either two times per week, or more than three times per week. A quasi-experimental control-group design with repeated measures analysis of variance and analysis of covariance was employed to explore performance differences between groups. The second study examined student learning in relation to characteristics such as their game performance, attitudes toward the game and toward mathematics, and gender and ethnicity. During a 4-month period, 50 second grade students from three classes played a technology-based game under conditions that varied depending on their teacher's direction. Multiple regression was used to determine the relationship between students' arithmetic scores and learner characteristics. Descriptive analyses by ability level, gender and ethnicity, and interview data about attitudes toward the technology game were also analyzed. Results from the two studies revealed that using a technology-based game in the classroom was beneficial to students of all ability levels in learning arithmetic skills. (Contains 11 tables and 2 figures.)

Estimates are that 32 million people currently play fantasy football every year. Project Based Learning (PBL) is one method of engaging students in the educational process. This paper outlines a semester long project undertaken by undergraduate sport management students that uses fantasy football as a vehicle to enhance student knowledge of basic sport marketing concepts. The five major components of sport marketing (Product, Price, Place, Promotion, and Public Relations) are addressed through the project. At the end of the project, the students have a portfolio of material that was developed to illustrate their understanding of these components. While the evidence is anecdotal, there are indications that this project does engage students and does enhance their knowledge of key sport marketing components.

This article briefly summarizes findings from a review of 95 empirical studies of games used in instruction. The article suggests that such efforts are best assessed as transfer from game play to performance on external tasks that are targeted by the instruction. Review findings suggest that such transfer may be expected only if the cognitive processes engaged by games and external tasks overlap. Integrating games into a course of study is likely to facilitate such transfer. Research on improvement in cognitive processes as a result of playing "first-person shooter" games is briefly overviewed, and suggestions for similar research not using aggressive content are made. Minimal overlap between this and another research review of the effects of games used in instruction is discussed, and the need for generally accepted definitions and a taxonomy of games is noted.

Why does the adherence to norms not prevent conflict? While the current literature focuses on the emergence, maintenance and impact of norms with regard to cooperation, the issue of norm-related conflict deserves more attention. We develop a general game theoretical model of "normative conflict" and explain how transaction failures on the macrolevel can result from cooperative motives on the microlevel. We differentiate between two kinds of conflict. The first results from distinct expectations regarding the way in which general normative obligations should be fulfilled, the second from distinct expectations as to how the norm should restrain actions based on self-interest. We demonstrate the empirical relevance of normative conflict in a version of the ultimatum game. Our data reveal widespread normative conflict among different types of actors--egoistic, equity, equality and cherry picker. Our findings demonstrate how cooperative intentions about how to divide a collectively produced good may fail to produce cooperative outcomes. (Contains 15 notes, 1 table, and 8 figures.)

The motivation for this research was to understand under what conditions supply chain cooperation might be feasible and under what circumstances it is not. Whereas previous research focuses on dyads in a supply chain, our research seeks to examine a possible factor that can explain why truly cooperative supply chains involving more than two firms are a rarity among independent firms. This research extends the use of game theory to demonstrate the potential impact of a multiple-tier supply chain agreement. (Contains 3 figures.)

The game SO LONG SUCKER was designed in the United States in 1964 with the aim of showing how potentially unethical behavior necessary for winning was inherent in the game's incentive structure. Sessions with East Asian participants, however, led to very different game dynamics in which collaborative rather than antagonistic behaviors occurred. This confirms that the course of a simulation game run is determined by more than its rules and roles. The participants' personalities, skills, personal histories, and preexisting relationships also play a role. Furthermore, the unwritten rules of social behavior that the participants have been socialized into, their culture, is of crucial importance. This article uses experiences with a mix of U.S. and Taiwanese participants to discuss the interaction of written and unwritten rules in determining game dynamics. The suitability for international classroom use of this game, and others, as a vehicle for drawing lessons about culture is argued. (Contains 3 figures.)

This article presents the current development of a serious game for the simulation of massive evacuations. The purpose of this project is to promote self-protection through awareness of the procedures and different possible scenarios during the evacuation of a massive event. Sophisticated behaviors require massive computational power and it has been necessary to implement several distributed programming techniques to simulate crowds of thousands of people. Even with the current state of computer hardware, the costs of building and operating this hardware is still prohibitive; so, it's preferred to apply distributed programming techniques running on specialized parallel computing hardware.

This study suggests that conceptualization is the primary activity of arcade-style gameplay. Arcade-style game play is primarily a function of presenting concepts to players and continually requiring them to react with finer responses. The degree to which a concept is malleable determines how large its range is in gameplay. In other words, the characteristics of a concept determine its role in gameplay. The primary purpose of this article is to distinguish between two types of concepts; one that is appropriate for arcade style gaming and another that requires a different, more involved style. Designers of games, particularly of educational games, will find guidance for selecting concepts related to their instructional content.

Drawing on a participatory study of the Perplex City alternate reality game, this paper considers the data obtained through participation and a detailed survey of the most engaged players, in order to determine the most engaging features and suggest methods for their transfer to educational contexts. Originally presented at a conference in 2008, this paper returns to the source data in more detail, incorporating reflection on other work in this area in the intervening years, and considers four areas in detail: engagement/motivation, narrative/story, problem solving/learning skills, and community/peer support. The survey data is presented and considered in full, from which seven key features are proposed which could be applied to educational contexts to achieve higher levels of engagement amongst learners.

In this paper, we use game theory to understand decisions to cooperate or to compete in the delivery of public health services. Health care is a quasi-public good that is often associated with altruistic behavior, yet it operates in an increasingly competitive environment. With mounting health care regulation and changes in privatization, altruistic arguments give way to more competitive rationales for market decisions. Profit and not-for-profit institutions must address widespread health care needs while balancing the needs of more lucrative markets against the needs of lesser ones. Recognizing the roles of cooperation and competition as motivators in the delivery of health care to the public is imperative. We explore two game theory models (Nash's Equilibrium and the Prisoner's Dilemma) and their related concepts of simultaneous interdependence and rationality to examine decision-making. Four hypothetical public health case studies are presented. We conclude that understanding game theory and the factors influencing decision-making allows potential competitors to make more efficient decisions, including decisions to cooperate or compete. As public health agencies move toward more collaborative models of service delivery, such understanding may help enhance efficient and effective service delivery. (Contains 6 tables.)

The growing interest in video gaming is matched by a corresponding increase in concerns about the harmful effects on children and adolescents. There are numerous studies on aggression and addiction which spark debates on the negative effects of video gaming. At the same time, there are also studies demonstrating prosocial effects. This paper focuses on how video games, particularly massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMOs and MMORPGs for short) that allow interaction with other players, can play a part in players' moral and character development. Although there are many games with moral content, the MMO game "World of Warcraft" ("WoW" for short) is used as an illustrative example because of its popularity, to demonstrate how players, through game content and game play, are confronted with moral dilemmas which demand decision-making, social obligations and responsibilities, perspective-taking and empathy, perseverance and delayed gratification.

We analyze discrimination against less attractive people on a TV game show with high stakes. The game has a rich structure that allows us to disentangle the relationship between attractiveness and the determinants of a player's earnings. Unattractive players perform no worse than attractive ones, and are equally cooperative in the prisoner's dilemma stage of the game. Nevertheless, they are substantially more likely to be eliminated by their peers, even though this is costly. We investigate third party perceptions of discrimination by asking subjects to predict elimination decisions. Subjects implicitly assign a role for attractiveness but underestimate its magnitude. (Contains 1 figure, 10 tables, and 26 footnotes.)

Is the power relationship between public school teachers and principals a win-win situation or a zero-sum game? By applying hierarchical linear modeling to the 1999-2000 nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey data, we found that both the win-win and zero-sum-game theories had empirical evidence. The decision-making areas characterized by the win-win theory are much more than those characterized by the zero-sum-game theory. The practice of win-win is more prevalent at the elementary than at the secondary level. Whether it is win-win or zero-sum depends on the decision-making areas and the school level. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 1 note.)

Educational benefits of online collaborative group work have been confirmed in numerous research studies. Most frequently cited advantages include the development of skills of critical thinking and problem solving as well as skills of self-reflection and co-construction of knowledge and meaning. However, the establishment and maintenance of active collaboration in online study groups is a challenging task, primarily due to students' inability (e.g., owing to time constraints or lack of collaboration skills) or reluctance (e.g., due to the lack of or low participation of other group members) to participate actively in the group work. Aiming to better understand and contribute to the resolution of the problems of effective online group work, we followed a novel approach based on Evolutionary Game Theory (EGT). While EGT has been used extensively as a framework for studying the emergence and maintenance of cooperation in many disciplines, to the best of our knowledge, it has not yet been applied to understanding and facilitating group collaboration in online learning settings. In this paper, we present a study we have conducted in order to investigate whether, and to what extent, EGT can be applied to explain students' participation in collaborative study groups. (Contains 3 figures and 5 tables.)

Over 20 years ago, the late William Zahka (1990, 1998) outlined how the acceptance speeches of those who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science could be used to teach undergraduates. This article updates and expands Zahka's work, identifying some of the issues discussed by recent Nobel Laureates, classifying their speeches by topic and level of difficulty, and providing some examples of how their work could be integrated into undergraduate courses. Particular examples illustrate how the material might be used in introductory and later courses, and the Laureates' insights on research are discussed. (Contains 2 tables and 10 notes.)

The author uses game theoretical models to identify technical communication breakdowns encountered during the notoriously confusing Texas Two-Step voting and caucusing process. Specifically, the author uses narrative theory and game theory to highlight areas where caucus participants needed instructions to better understand the rules of the game and user analysis to better anticipate participants' motives and strategies. As a central tool of analysis, the author uses Nobel Laureate John C. Harsanyi's work on "incomplete game" or Bayesian games. The article demonstrates opportunities for technical communication scholars and teachers to use inter-disciplinary approaches to discover layers of technical communication in small group negotiations and to evaluate the layers of instructions and technologies needed to facilitate effective and ethical decision making in political caucusing.

Simulation games are now increasingly applied to many subject domains as they allow students to engage in discovery processes, and may facilitate a flow learning experience. However, the relationship between learning experiences and problem solving strategies in simulation games still remains unclear in the literature. This study, thus, analyzed the feedback and problem solving behaviors of 117 students in a simulation game, designed to assist them to learn computational problem solving. It was found that students when learning computational problem solving with the game were more likely to perceive a flow learning experience than in traditional lectures. The students' intrinsic motivation was also enhanced when they learned with the simulation game. In particular, the results of the study found a close association between the students' learning experience states and their problem solving strategies. The students who perceived a flow experience state frequently applied trial-and-error, learning-by-example, and analytical reasoning strategies to learn the computational problem solving skills. However, a certain portion of students who experienced states of boredom and anxiety did not demonstrate in-depth problem solving strategies. For instance, the students who felt anxious in the simulation game did not apply the learning-by-example strategy as frequently as those in the flow state. In addition, the students who felt bored in the simulation game only learned to solve the problem at a superficial level. (Contains 2 tables and 7 figures.)

This paper analyzes the behavior of families in China regarding private tutoring, applying game theory to its discussion of their actions. It finds that families will definitely give their children private tutoring after school in order to obtain better educational opportunities in situations where the distribution of educational resources is uneven. According to game theory, overuse of private tutoring after school will waste societal resources and negatively affect all the players in the game. It is argued that a key strategy to reduce private tutoring after school is to close the gaps in state provision of education.