Game-based Education
S.F. Noorani; M. Serkani; Z. Karimi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Game Theory is a branch of applied mathematics that can mathematically model the real-world scenarios for situations such as competition and cooperation and predict their payoffs. The main point in Game Theory is that the interests of the competition or cooperation of both ...
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Background and Objectives: Game Theory is a branch of applied mathematics that can mathematically model the real-world scenarios for situations such as competition and cooperation and predict their payoffs. The main point in Game Theory is that the interests of the competition or cooperation of both sides depend on each other's decisions. The teaching and learning environments are considered as an undeniable atmosphere of interactions among the learners, faculty members, and instructors. Using Game Theory to interactions modeling, we are able to analyze the situation to achieve the greater educational achievement. In this paper, for the first time, we used Educational Game Theory to mention the use of Game Theory in the education context. The aim of the present study was to highlight the types of applications of Game Theory in addressing various aspects of teaching and learning in the articles that were conducted from 1987 to 2022.Methods: This research is applied in terms of purpose and systematically provides a comprehensive review of research on the use of game theory in education and learning. In the first stage, by searching the electronic scientific and research sources and preliminary study of abstract, introduction, and conclusion of articles, we discovered that 42 articles were related to the purpose of our research. In the next stage, each of the studied articles was examined and analyzed in detail from four aspects: What is the application of game theory in the field of education and learning? Is there a mechanism design in the study? Who interacts in the field of education (learners, teachers, staff, and parents), and basically who are the players in the proposed model? Finally, we investigated how the articles evaluate and proved their proposed model. Using a questionnaire, the applications of game theory in the field of education were prioritized. The best-worst (BWM) multi-criteria decision-making method was used for prioritization.Findings: In the present study, we divided the use of game theory in the field of education and learning into six categories. The first category was research that analyzed participatory behavior in different situations. The second category was research that used game theory to create an environment for further learning; the third category was articles that used game theory to model conditions that would affect the quality of education and create an environment for further learning. The fourth category was research that modeled learner assessment conditions. The fifth category modeled and analyzed the educational behavior of teachers with each other and their teaching methods. The sixth category was articles that considered the collaborative learning environment and use game theory to recommend educational resources to group members. From the perspective of relationship modeling, 60% of the articles modeled the interaction among the learners, 29% modeled the interaction between the instructors and learners and 7% of the articles modeled the interaction of the instructors. One article modeled parental interaction in deciding whether to hire a tutor and one article modeled the employee-learner relationship on cheating. The analysis of the findings showed that applications such as "learner assessment", "enhancement of learning" and "content suggestion" were assigned the highest priorities, respectively. Applications such as "teachers' educational behavior analysis", "investigation of environmental factors affecting education" and "participatory behavior analysis" were in lower priorities.Conclusion: We studied and organized studies which have applied Game Theory in the education area. The areas of learner assessment by the instructor or peer, grouping for collaboration learning, using the user model, and implicit modeling were some of the topics that needed further research in Educational Game Theory. Also, in learner/learner and learner/teacher interactions, new incentives design methods need to encourage players to learning improvement. The results of this study provide a perspective for researchers in the area of education and learning regarding the use of Game Theory in modeling the teaching and learning environment and creating conditions for increasing educational outcomes.
e-learning
S. F. Noorani; M. Ahmadi
Abstract
Background and Objectives: Moodle is a Learning Management System (LMS) that is designed and implemented to provide easy distance learning and e-learning and run any electronic and online learning program. This system is an open-source and can be used in any field of learning. Given the importance and ...
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Background and Objectives: Moodle is a Learning Management System (LMS) that is designed and implemented to provide easy distance learning and e-learning and run any electronic and online learning program. This system is an open-source and can be used in any field of learning. Given the importance and impact of collaborative learning as an educational paradigm, Moodle has provided tools such as wikis, workshops, and forums to provide an environment of collaborative interaction. Peer learning is a form of collaborative learning in which socially equal learners teach and learn from each other. In this paper, we applied Game Theory to design and implement a mechanism to design and run a peer learning environment in Moodle. The proposed mechanism is called GT-Moodle which uses forum tools in the Moodle environment and Prisoner's Dilemma - one of the most famous games in Game Theory- to create a peer learning environment to increase the learners’ motivation in the process of learning. By investigating the education-oriented research conducted in the field of Game Theory, it was found that these research studies have modeled the interaction of teacher/teacher, teacher/learner, learner/learner, and employee/learner. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been conducted to apply the Game Theory in order to create a peer-learning space in a Moodle environment. The space and conditions of the Prisoner’s Dilemma is very similar to those of the peer learning environment. Like Prisoner’s Dilemma in which the cooperation and participation of both players bring more achievement than lack of cooperation and enmity of both of them, in peer learning, the effort and cooperation of both learners in the activities designed for learning lead to more educational achievement and learning for both of the learners. More cooperation in peer learning increases the learning improvement that is the main goal of the GT-Moodle mechanism.Methods: The present research is applied in terms of purpose, and descriptive in terms of data collection and analysis, and quasi-experimental in terms of implementation using post-test design with control and experimental groups. To evaluate, 26 students of discrete mathematics in computer engineering were randomly selected as the experimental group and 27 students were selected as the control group. The GT-Moodle mechanism uses Forum to group and define group activities. This mechanism was performed in several different sessions of the course on the test group and finally, the results of a post-test on the control and test groups were used to evaluate the effect of the proposed GT-Moodle mechanism.Findings: Using the Mann-Whitney U independent group test, the post-test scores of the test group and the control group were compared. The Mann-Whitney U test showed a p-value=0.000<0.05 meaning that there is a significant difference between the mean rank of the experimental and control groups at the level of 5%. Also, the mean rank of the experimental group was 35.31 which is higher than the mean rank of the control group with a value of 19. This indicates a positive effect for the proposed mechanism in this study (GT-Moodle) on learning enhancement.Conclusion: The results of this research can be used and implemented by any educational institution that is going to use peer learning to create a productive learning environment. Since the current Moodle's tools have been used in the design of the proposed mechanism, its implementation does not require additional skills other than those of working with the Moodle, and any instructor with the knowledge of using the Moodle space can easily use the GT-Moodle mechanism.
