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The Grade Game: an in-class single-play Prisoner's Dilemma with exam points at stake

Design · All designs
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study, q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description

The Grade Game is a single play simultaneous move game with a dominant strategy, modeled after the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, played in Eco101 after a Game Theory module covering dominant strategies and the Nash Equilibrium. Students are randomly paired and circle MORE or LESS points on the next exam: "If one student chooses MORE while his partner chooses LESS, he will receive 2 extra points and the partner will receive -10 points." Outcomes are designated as points that can be won or lost on the next in-class exam to make the game realistic.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

  • In-class play so the instructor can enforce the restriction of communication between students and give each student equal time to participate

Constraints

  • Bonus or penalty points were not actually awarded on the subsequent exam; this was announced at the end of the class period

Target Learners

  • undergraduate students in a Principles of Economics course

Learning Goals

  • understanding the Prisoner's Dilemma, dominant strategies, and the Nash Equilibrium as applied to oligopolistic market structure

Claims

Examples

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Key Sources

  • Byun, C.H.C. (2014). The Prisoner's Dilemma and economics 101: Do active learning exercises correlate with student performance? Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 14(5), 79-91. https://doi.org/10.14434/josotlv14i5.12950
Page metadata
Field Value
type design
id grade-game-prisoners-dilemma-exercise
title The Grade Game: an in-class single-play Prisoner's Dilemma with exam points at stake
description The Grade Game is a single play simultaneous move game with a dominant strategy, modeled after the classic Prisoner's Dilemma, played in Eco101 after a Game Theory module covering dominant strategies and the Nash Equi...
status review
generated by process:settle-candidates on 2026-11-02
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — byun-2014

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