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The purposes of this study were to develop a notational system to evaluate passing, dribbling, first touch, and individual defensive skills as they relate to success during women's soccer games and to develop a statistical model to weigh the importance of each skill on creating scoring opportunities. Sequences of skills in ten games of a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I intercollegiate women's soccer team were coded using well defined performance scores and outcomes. The notational analysis system was highly reliable as demonstrated by Spearman's rank correlations (greater than 0.98) between the first and second notation of three games for all four skills. The importance scores calculated from a Bayesian model demonstrated that dribbling (0.0127) was the most important skill on creating scoring opportunities, followed by first touch (0.0079), passing (0.0075), and individual defense (0.0050). The notational system developed from this study provides coaches with reliable and objective information to improve practice planning and optimize performance. (Contains 8 tables and 1 figure.)

Environmental markets have several institutional features that provide a new context for the use of auctions and that have not been studied previously. This paper reports on laboratory experiments testing three auction forms--uniform and discriminatory price sealed-bid auctions and an ascending clock auction. We test the ability of subjects to tacitly or explicitly collude in order to maximize profits. Our main result is that the discriminatory and uniform price auctions produce greater revenues than the clock auction, both with and without explicit communication. The clock appears to facilitate successful collusion, both because of its sequential structure and because it allows bidders to focus on one dimension of cooperation (quantity) rather than two (price and quantity). (Contains 15 footnotes, 6 tables, and 6 figures.)

The traveler's dilemma is a generalization of the prisoner's dilemma which shows clearly a paradox of game theory. In the traveler's dilemma, the strategy chosen by analysis and theory seems obviously wrong intuitively. Here we develop a measure of evolutionary stability and show that the evolutionarily stable equilibrium is in some sense not very stable. Understanding evolutionary stability on a continuum instead of as a yes-or-no definition helps to explain and partially resolve the paradox in the traveler's dilemma.

Computer games are now becoming ways to communicate, teach, and influence attitudes and behavior. In this article, we address the role of humor in computer games, especially in support of serious purposes. We begin with a review of the main theories of humor, including superiority, incongruity, and relief. These theories and their interrelationships do well in helping us understand the humor process, but they have been developed in the context of traditional human activity. To explore how they relate to computer games, we present the findings of a qualitative study of player experience of humor and show how it relates to the theoretical perspectives. We then review the main functions of humor, especially its effects on social, emotional, and cognitive behavior. We show how each of these functions can be used in game design to support the specific experiences and outcomes of game-play. Finally, we address the issue of serious games and make suggestions on how humor can inform and support the design of those games. We suggest that humor can support design by smoothing and sustaining the game mechanics. Moreover, games can draw on the functions of humor in the real world for enhancing communication, learning, and social presence. Using humor makes games richer and more powerful, as well as fun. (Contains 1 table.)

The athletic conference in which a university or college competes has meaning that extends beyond the playing field. Institutions generally desire to compete against others that are similar to them in profile, including their approach to athletics, as well as being in the same geographic region. The commonalities between and among institutions in a conference create a peer group useful in benchmarking, one that may even heighten competition between and among members. In this article, the author explores how the division and conference in which an institution competes has implications beyond athletics. The author examines how athletic affiliation links with institutional aspirations, including how institutions change divisions and conferences to better position themselves. (Contains 1 note.)

The game of rugby is a fast and fluid invasion game, similar to football, that involves scoring with an oval ball into an end zone. The game presents, like other invasion games, a series of highly complex tactical problems so that the ball can be maneuvered into a scoring position. Pugh and Alford (2004) recently indicated that rugby is now finding its way into more school athletic and physical education programs. Therefore, more resources are needed to enable rugby to be taught in schools. This article aims to contribute to the literature for PE teachers with a series of three progressive lessons that introduce students (in the upper elementary and/or early middle school grade levels) to the game of rugby using a modified tag version of the game. Additionally, the article provides an assessment rubric for the purposes of evaluating student performance on the technical, tactical and strategical aspects of play taught in the three lessons. (Contains 6 figures and 2 tables.)

What are the cognitive processes underlying cooperation in groups? This question is addressed by examining how well a reciprocity model, two learning models, and social value orientation can predict cooperation in two iterated n-person social dilemmas with continuous contributions. In the first of these dilemmas, the public goods game, participants made repeated decisions about contributions to one public good. In the second, the social dilemma network game, the public good was divided into multiple two-person public goods, thus allowing selective cooperation. Both dilemmas were conducted in an experiment in which the participants had to search actively for information about other players' past behavior on a computerized information board. As predicted by the reciprocity model, participants cooperated substantially more in the social dilemma network game. The reciprocity model proved most successful of the models compared in predicting participants' information search and contributions. Reciprocity appears to be a better predictor for cooperative behavior in repeatedly interacting groups than reinforcement learning or stable social value orientation. (Contains 5 figures and 3 tables.)

This article analyzes the topic of leadership from an evolutionary perspective and proposes three conclusions that are not part of mainstream theory. First, leading and following are strategies that evolved for solving social coordination problems in ancestral environments, including in particular the problems of group movement, intragroup peacekeeping, and intergroup competition. Second, the relationship between leaders and followers is inherently ambivalent because of the potential for exploitation of followers by leaders. Third, modern organizational structures are sometimes inconsistent with aspects of our evolved leadership psychology, which might explain the alienation and frustration of many citizens and employees. The authors draw several implications of this evolutionary analysis for leadership theory, research, and practice. (Contains 2 tables and 5 footnotes.)

Recently, experimental economists have become increasingly interested in behaviors relating to morality, and one of the main tools for examining these issues has been game theory. Even though developmental psychologists have investigated similar topics for decades, this research has found little resonance. Similarly, economists have only recently started to become interested in moral developmental psychology. In this article, we explore the implications of an interconnection of these two disciplines. Adopting a game theoretical perspective promises to open novel avenues to investigate the moral development of children using a different theoretical and methodological point of view. Developmental psychologists can contribute their knowledge about the ontogenesis of moral abilities and competencies to economic research. We will give examples of recent applications of economic game theory in the field of (moral) developmental psychology by particularly focusing on developmental processes, moral cognitions, and moral emotions.

This paper describes classroom experiments in cooperative behavior as examples of experiential learning in economics classes. Several games are briefly discussed and a new game in cartel behavior is presented. In this game, Students make production decisions as a cartel and earn revenues based on their own output decision and the output decision of the rest of the cartel. Cooperative behavior generates maximum profit for the group, but individuals have incentive to break from the group. The demonstration can be used to illustrate profit maximizing decisions for a cooperative oligopoly and for individual firms, to introduce strategic behavior and game theory, and to demonstrate the instability of cartels. The paper includes review of other papers and experiments in cooperative behavior, a description of and instructions for the cartel experiment, analysis of results of the experiment, and suggested questions and topics for classroom discussion. (Contains 2 figures, 3 tables and 11 footnotes.)

In the management of common property resources, privatization is often advocated as the surest path to sustainability because of its reliance on human self-interest in natural resources decision making. This article demonstrates that the motive of self-interest, though powerful, does not necessarily lead to environmental outcomes that promote the common good. The key to avoiding the Tragedy of the Commons is not private ownership but controlling access. (Contains 2 figures.)

This study interconnects developmental psychology of fair and moral behavior with economic game theory. One hundred eighty-nine 9- to 17-year-old students shared a sum of money as individuals and groups with another anonymous group (dictator game). Individual allocations did not differ by age but did by gender and were predicted by participants' preferences for fair allocations. Group decision making followed a majority process. Level of moral reasoning did not predict individual offers, but group members with a higher moral reasoning ability were more influential during group negotiations and in influencing group outcomes. The youngest participants justified offers more frequently by referring to simple distribution principles. Older participants employed more complex reasons to justify deviations from allocation principles.

The authors present a simplified, "stripped-down" version of poker as an instructional classroom game. Although Stripped-Down Poker is extremely simple, it nevertheless provides an excellent illustration of a number of topics: signaling, bluffing, mixed strategies, the value of information, and Bayes's Rule. The authors begin with a description of Stripped-Down Poker: how to play it, what makes it an interesting classroom game, and how to teach its solution to students. They describe how signaling, bluffing, and so forth emerge naturally as important features of the game and then discuss possible applications of this game-theoretic model to real-world interactions, such as litigation, tax evasion, and domestic or international diplomacy. They also suggest modifications of the game either for use in class or as student exercises. For reference, they conclude with a brief history of game-theoretic treatments of poker. (Contains 4 figures and 19 notes.)

Game theory has been one of the most prominent theories in the social sciences, influencing diverse academic disciplines such as anthropology, biology, economics, and political science. In recent years, economists have employed game theory to investigate behaviors relating to fairness, reciprocity, and trust. Surprisingly, this research has not found much resonance in psychological research on social development, even though the two disciplines share a common interest in explaining similar social behaviors and phenomena. We argue that combining economic game theory with developmental psychology can prove to be valuable for both disciplines: developmental psychology can contribute its knowledge about the ontogenesis of social abilities and competencies to economic research, thus providing economists with new theories and understanding. Game theory, on the other hand, can offer developmental psychologists new methodologies and tools for investigating social development.

The authors investigate the strategic rationale behind the message sent by Osama bin Laden on the eve of the 2004 U.S. Presidential elections. They model this situation as a signaling game in which a population of receivers takes a binary choice, the outcome is decided by majority rule, sender and receivers have conflicting interests, and there is uncertainty about both players' degree of rationality. They characterize the structure of the sequential equilibria of the game as a function of the parameters governing the uncertainty and find that in all pure strategy equilibria, the outcome most preferred by the rational sender is chosen. An explanation of the above-mentioned events relies crucially on the relative likelihood of rational and naive players: If a sufficient departure from full rationality of the electorate is posited, then our model suggests that bin Laden's pre-electoral message succeeded in tilting the race toward his preferred outcome. (Contains 4 figures and 11 notes.)

Theories of choice in economics typically assume that interacting agents act individualistically and maximize their own utility. Specifically, game theory proposes that rational players should defect in one-shot prisoners' dilemmas (PD). Defection also appears to be the inevitable outcome for agents who learn by reinforcement of past choices, because whatever the other player does, defection leads to greater reinforcement on each trial. In a computer simulation and 4 experiments, the authors show that, apparently paradoxically, when players' choices are correlated by an exogenous factor (here, the cooperativeness of the specific PD chosen), people obtain greater average reinforcement for cooperating, which can sustain cooperation. This effect arises from a well-known statistical paradox, Simpson's paradox. The authors speculate that this effect may be relevant to aspects of real-world human cooperative behavior. (Contains 11 tables, 1 figure and 4 footnotes.)

A major challenge in conducting classroom experiments for larger classes is the complexity of assembling responses and reporting feedback to students. The author demonstrates how mobile phone text messaging can be used to overcome the limitations of pencil-and-paper experiments without incurring the costs of full computerization. Students submit responses as text messages, which are down-loaded into a spreadsheet for automated analysis and by return messaging. The author presents examples of experiments that have been conducted successfully using text messaging as the response medium. These can be run in any room from which the instructor can access the internet and are designed to economize on both class time and effort of the instructor. (Contains 7 figures and 22 notes.)

This article describes a graduate distance education course at North Carolina State University, which combined science content and pedagogy with video game design. The course was conducted entirely in a synchronous, online, Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) through the ActiveWorlds[TM] platform. Inservice teachers enrolled as graduate students in science education learned to construct video games as a supplement to their science instruction. The ultimate objective of this course was to advance student achievement and interest in science by providing teachers with a viable source for integrating video game technology into the curriculum. A case study design suggested positive student attitudes toward course satisfaction. The implications of these results suggest a positive avenue for technology integration in teacher education that meets the growing demand for engaging students in all content areas. (Contains 2 figures, 1 table and 1 note.) [This project was funded by the North Carolina State Distance Education and Learning Technologies Alliance.]

Art education has been in the midst of a transformation shaped by several factors, including changes in contemporary art theories, political and economic factors, and technological developments. Film, music videos, advertisements, video games and other forms of popular culture are shaping how students learn today. Discussions about video gaming typically have turned to concerns about a recurring narrative, focusing on violence with sexist and racist content, found in games such as "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" (2004). Today, educators and researchers recognize the potential of video games to engage players in multi-sensory, complex learning processes. Games that promote social action have become popular over the past 5 years and have represented a new genre of games that researchers from a range of disciplines are beginning to investigate. This discussion of video games examines simulation, situated learning, and social realism gaming schemas as well as social reconstructionist art education. Specifically, the article explores the videogames "Peacemaker" (2006) and "Darfur is Dying" (2006) and their potential for learning in a social reconstructionist art education context.

New models of schooling are necessary as educational institutions attempt to transition into the digital age. This article is an ethnography of Apolyton University, an informal online university of gamers created to enhance pleasure from the game experience, teach the game, and improve upon the game's standard rule set. It identifies the life trajectory of the community from formation to completion, and identifies key participant structures that scaffold learning. The article argues that participation results in a trajectory of experience whereby players enter as players but leave as designers, as evidenced by gameplay practices, as well as several participants being hired by game companies as a result of their participation. The authors argue that this sort of participatory ethos is central to learning systems in a digital age. (Contains 6 figures, 3 tables and 5 notes.)

Gambling on college and professional sports and the influence of attending colleges with differing levels of "sports interest" were examined among athletes, sports fans, and other students (N = 10,559) at 119 colleges in the United States using multilevel statistical analysis. Athletes and fans reported more sports gambling compared to other students, with no differences between athletes and fans. Male students were more likely to gamble than female students, but gender did not moderate the relationship between athletic participation and sports gambling. Students attending schools with a greater "sports interest" were more likely to gamble on college sports after adjusting for individual characteristics. Athletes, sports fans, and students attending schools with high "sports interest" are appropriate targets for prevention efforts. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

Electronic game technologies can prepare novice learners for future learning of complex concepts. This paper describes the underlying instructional design, learning science, cognitive science, and game theory. A structural, or syntactic mapping (structure mapping), approach to game design can produce a game world relationally isomorphic to a targeted complex concept. Such a game world should provide experiential and reflective gameplay to help learners form a preconceptual mental model of the targeted concept. A preparation for future learning (PFL) approach would follow gameplay with direct instruction. (Contains 2 figures, 1 table and 4 notes.)

If we intend to teach through educational media, we also have to teach about those media. This article explores the implications of this perspective for the use of computer games in the classroom. It seeks to explain why and how teachers might teach about computer games as a medium in their own right, just as they teach about film or television or literature; and it argues that such teaching should not be confined to the critical analysis of existing games, but should also involve enabling students to create their own. The first part of the article provides a broadly theoretical discussion of the notion of "game literacy", on which our approach is based. We argue that this notion needs to address both the defining characteristics of games and the elements they share with other media; and that it needs to incorporate the social practices and contexts within which games are played. The second part of the article explores these issues further through a discussion of the authors' own research in UK schools. It considers the kinds of learning and literacy at stake in the game productions of a group of 12/13-year old students, and the cultural models on which they drew. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of this approach for educational practice and policy. (Contains 4 figures.)

We define a "hot potato" to be a good that may be traded a finite number of times, but which becomes a bad if and when it can no longer be exchanged. We describe a game involving such goods, and show that non-acceptance is a unique subgame perfect Nash equilibrium for rational egoists. Contrastingly, experiments with human subjects show willingness to accept such goods under a variety of conditions. Acceptance of the hot potato is positively related to payoff size and to the length of the remaining chain, but negatively related to the number of potential exchange partners. We find that subjects' behaviors are consistent with collectively oriented behavior, in contrast with their personal accounts. Implications for rational choice theory and economic sociology are discussed. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 5 notes.)

Complex computer and video games may provide a vehicle, based on appropriate theoretical concepts, to transform the educational landscape. Building on the original game object model (GOM) a new more detailed model is developed to support concepts that educational computer games should: be relevant, explorative, emotive, engaging, and include complex challenges; support authentic learning activities that are designed as narrative social spaces where learners are transformed through exploration of multiple representation, and reflection; be gender-inclusive, include non-confrontational outcomes, and provide appropriate role models; develop democracy, and social capital through dialogue that is supported by means of computer mediated-communication tools; and include challenges, puzzles or quests, which form the core of the learning process, where access to explicit knowledge, conversations, and reflection results in the construction of tacit knowledge. It is argued that the GOM version II can be used not only to support the development of educational computer games but to provide a mechanism to evaluate the use of computer games in the classroom.

Game theory approaches to find optimal marketing decisions are considered. Antagonistic games with and without complete information, and non-antagonistic games techniques are applied to paired comparison, ranking, or rating data for a firm and its competitors in the market. Mix strategy, equilibrium in bi-matrix games, bargaining models with Shapley and Nash solutions are presented in examples from the market research field. The approaches considered are very convenient and can substantially enrich both theoretical and practical applications of game theory in marketing and advertising research. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

The paper's aim is to demonstrate the utility of the well-known Nim game when it is used as a tool in teaching the binary system. A way to increase student comprehension, it also forms a basis for student projects and extracurricular activities on the topic. The paper offers descriptions of two versions of the game and the underlying mathematical theory, the winning algorithm, an elementary introduction to the binary system, structured proof of the winning strategy, and data structures and algorithm for computer implementation. All materials are offered in a form oriented towards presentation and discussion in the classroom. (Contains 2 tables, 1 figure, and 4 online resources.)

The Monty Hall three-door, "Let's Make a Deal" game, named after the 1970s television show, is used widely in economics, econometrics, statistics, and game-theory-based teaching, as well as in many other disciplines. Its solutions and underlying assumptions arouse great passion and argument, in both the academic and popular press. Most economists believe that the first popular elucidation of the game was presented by Nalebuff in the "Journal of Economic Literature". However, the game and its controversial solution were spelled out in "The American Statistician" years earlier by Selvin, at the time a young biostatistician at the University of California at Berkeley. Mathematicians give him due credit. The author argues that economists should also recognise his contribution. (Contains 15 notes.)

The author describes a course designed to build the critical thinking skills of undergraduate economics students. The course introduces and uses game theory to study the Bible. Students gain experience using game theory to formalize events and, by drawing parallels between the Bible and common economic concepts, illustrate the pervasiveness of game-theoretic reasoning across topics within economics as well as various fields of study. (Contains 3 notes and 1 table.)

The authors present a constructivist approach for teaching game theory, on the basis, in part, of Axelrod's research approach. Using the Axelrod tournament multi-user system (ATMUS) software, students create strategies for a repeated prisoner's dilemma (RPD). Later, these strategies are matched with those of their classmates' in a classroom tournament while the instructor interactively and graphically demonstrates the behavior of the strategies. A two- to three-week instructional implementation strategy is provided to highlight effective use of the ATMUS software, according to constructivist learning principles, to ensure that students are engaged in critical thinking regarding RPD. (Contains 4 figures and 5 notes.)

The authors describe an in-class exercise in which students participate in an auction to buy US Airways. The exercise is based on events of late 1995, in which neither United nor American Airlines decided to bid for US Airways. Two teams of students participate in an English auction. Students learn that the equilibrium of the sequential game is that neither firm bid and, thereby, learn why US Airways did not sell at that time. In addition, two other teams participate in a sealed-bid auction, in which US Airways will sell in Nash equilibrium. Results typically have lined up with theoretical predictions. (Contains 1 figure and 3 notes.)

Prisoner's Dilemma is a common game theory scenario in which two players must choose between acting cooperatively or out of pure self-interest. What a player decides affects not only his own outcome but also that of the other player. "Friend or Foe," a TV game show that has appeared on the cable Game Show Network (GSN), places pairs of contestants in a situation similar to Prisoner's Dilemma. After working together to accumulate money into a "trust fund," the two teammates divide their winnings, or not, based on their individual decisions to be a "Friend" to their teammate or a "Foe." We have collected data on the contestants and their behavior from 36 episodes of the show. In this paper we describe how the game show is played, what game theory says about the way that the contestants should act, and how they actually did act on the 36 episodes. We also present an example of how "Friend or Foe" can be used in a classroom setting not only to introduce game theory but also to review previous course material. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)

This article focuses on the relationship between university research (in this case science research) and national economic productivity, particularly in the context of the emerging knowledge economy. It addresses the question of whether university research output should be treated as a public good or a private good, in economic terms, and analyses this question using the tool of game theory. The analysis also draws out the implications both for universities and for governments of treating science as one type of good instead of another.

The long history of experimental research on the prisoner's dilemma (PD) has primarily used a methodology that eliminates cues to participants. Researchers, however, have interpreted participants' choices as cooperative or competitive. The authors' research shows that giving participants researchers' interpretive labels of the game, the choices, and the outcomes, compared to no labels, led to significantly more cooperation; labels such as "trust" and "cooperate/defect" augmented cooperation even more. A second experiment found that independent evaluations of the labels led to perceptions that were similar to individuals' choices in the first experiment. These results suggest that we might need to rethink the import of many of our previous findings and their applicability to everyday interactions. (Contains 4 tables, 7 figures, and 8 notes.)

Despite many applications of prospect theory's concepts to explain political and strategic phenomena, formal analyses of strategic problems using prospect theory are rare. Using Fearon's model of bargaining, Tversky and Kahneman's value function, and an existing probability weighting function, I construct a model that demonstrates the differences between expected value and prospect theory when applied to strategic interaction. Critically important to this demonstration is an examination of different types of reference points that make sense for bargaining problems. Four types of reference points are discussed and analyzed: power-based, equity, variants of the status quo, and extreme "I-want-it-all" reference points. Each of these types of reference points produce different bargaining behavior at the individual level and in combination with the type of reference point of the other actor. Additionally, I demonstrate that bargaining failure is possible for this model under complete and perfect information using prospect-theoretic logic. (Contains 9 figures, 1 table, and 18 notes.)

Although many decisions involve a stream of payoffs over time, political scientists have given little attention to how actors make the required tradeoffs between present and future payoffs, other than applying the standard exponential discounting model from economics. After summarizing the basic discounting model, we identify some of its leading behavioral anomalies--declining discount rates; preference reversals; higher discount rates for smaller payoffs than for larger payoffs and for gains than for losses; framing effects based on expectations; and a preference for ascending rather than descending sequences. We examine the leading alternative models of discounting and then apply a quasi-hyperbolic discount model to the problem of cooperation in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma games. We demonstrate that if actors display the widely observed tendency to highly discount the immediate future, then cooperation in an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game is more difficult than Axelrod suggests. (Contains 4 figures and 26 notes.)

Interactive immersive entertainment, or videogame playing, has emerged as a major entertainment and educational medium. As research and development initiatives proliferate, educational researchers might benefit by developing more grounded theories about them. This article argues for framing game play as a "designed experience." Players' understandings are developed through cycles of performance within the gameworlds, which instantiate particular theories of the world (ideological worlds). Players develop new identities both through game play and through the gaming communities in which these identities are enacted. Thus research that examines game-based learning needs to account for both kinds of interactions within the gameworld and in broader social contexts. Examples from curriculum developed for "Civilization III" and "Supercharged!" show how games can communicate powerful ideas and open new identity trajectories for learners. (Contains 2 figures and 1 table.)

This note introduces an interesting random walk on a straight path with cards of random numbers. The method of recurrent relations is used to obtain the convergent probability of the random walk with different initial positions.

This article concludes the serialization of the Royal Statistical Society's Schools Lecture for 2004, on "Lies and statistics".

Gene-culture interactions have largely been modelled employing population genetic-type models. Moreover, in the most notable application to date, the "interactive" modes have been one way rather than bidirectional. This paper suggests using game theoretic, fully interactive models. Employing the logic utilized in population ecology for coevolution between two species, the basic kinds of coevolutionary interactions possible between biological and sociocultural strategies are mutualism, in which both are favored to match; competition, in which they are favored to unmatch; and antagonism, in which one is favored to match and the other to unmatch, in two possible ways. Hypothetical examples based on life history characteristics, ones emphasizing the importance of the mode of cultural transmission, and possible complications are discussed. (Contains 3 tables.)

This paper discusses how the curriculum is shaped by the situational logic of a technology-filled classroom, and how this logic is under the influence of ideas about student--teacher interactions and "do-it-yourself learning." It analyses case material from a school using game theory. Free access in the classroom to the Internet, games, and chatting makes it difficult for the teacher to control the students' operations. When a student deems a threat to be empty, it is not rational for that student to allow the threat to influence his or her own actions. The laissez-faire regime is a result of rational considerations made by both parties. However, when students do not assume responsibility for learning, an accountability failure arises as a rational response to the design of the institutional framework. (Contains 1 table, 3 figures, and 22 notes.)

This paper analyzes a simple game-theoretic model of curriculum integration decision-making in a high school with academic and vocational tracks. The model is based on a formal theory of how curriculum integration affects learning. Teachers choose to include a curriculum integration unit in their classes only when it increases learning relative to the next best alternative. The analysis shows that (1) curriculum integration is not invariably the right choice for schools; (2) teachers may independently choose curriculum integration under certain circumstances; (3) teachers' independent choices about curriculum integration may or may not be optimal from a school-wide perspective; and (4) school leadership is called for when teacher choices are suboptimal.

The authors show how microeconomic concepts and principles are applicable to the study of terrorism. The utility maximization model provides insights into both terrorist resource allocation choices and government counterterrorism efforts, and basic game theory helps characterize the strategic interdependencies among terrorists and governments. (Contains 2 tables, 4 figures and 14 notes.)

This article has two primary goals: (a) to illustrate how a closer analysis of language can lead to fruitful insights into the activities that it helps constitute, and (b) to demonstrate the complexity of the practices that make up Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOGaming) through just such an analysis. The first goal is in response to the way we sometimes treat language in studies of activity, despite calls for more nuanced analyses (e.g., Wells, 2002), as a mere conduit for information in which its other (social, identity) functions are overlooked. The second goal is in response to the diatribes against video games in the media and their frequent dismissal as barren play. In this article, I use functional linguistics to unpack how a seemingly inconsequential turn of talk within the game "Lineage" reveals important aspects of the activity in which it is situated as well as the broader "forms of life" enacted in the game through which members display their allegiance and identity. (Contains 3 tables.)

Currently there is considerable enthusiasm for exploring how we can apply digital gaming paradigms to learning. But these approaches are often weak in linking the game-playing activity to transferable social or conceptual processes and skills that constitute, or are related to, learning. In contrast, this article describes a "dialogue game" approach to learning in cyberspace related to Wittgenstein's notion of a "language game" that seeks to explicitly link game-playing activity to the development of generic dialogical and reasoning skills that lead to improved conceptual understanding and collaborative knowledge refinement. This article initially discusses the current articulations of gaming as an approach to learning before justifying and describing the dialogue game approach the authors are currently adopting. This is followed by a summary of empirical evidence in support of this design paradigm and a description of a socio-cognitive tool called "InterLoc" that organises, mediates, structures and scaffolds educational dialogue games. The approach is demonstrated and the implications it holds for designing gaming or other types of educational interaction are then discussed in the context of existing and near-future possibilities within the evolving e-learning landscape. (Contains 3 notes, 1 table and 1 figure.)