Title: Using game theory to analyse homework administering in undergraduate teaching

Authors: Yanping Yu; Bo Jia

Addresses: School of Information and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Xiasha University Town, Hangzhou, 310018, China ' School of Information and Electronic Engineering, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Xiasha University Town, Hangzhou, 310018, China

Abstract: Effectively administering homework which is an inseparable portion of undergraduate teaching plays a crucial role in improving the teaching quality. After analysing the importance of homework and the attitude of instructors and students treating homework in detail, two non-cooperative games between an instructor and students in administering homework are established in this paper. Detailed payoff under different strategy combinations of both the instructor and students is analysed, when students are not highly self-motivated and when students are highly self-motivated. We reach the following conclusions: in the former case, instructors should take the initiative to adopt a strict strategy and inform students at the beginning so that both sides can acquire the possible maximum payoff; in the latter case, instructors should take a lenient strategy to some extent so as to lead to the maximum payoff of both sides. This paper provides a guideline to design teaching incentive effectively.

Keywords: undergraduate teaching; homework administration; game theory; higher education; teaching incentives; teaching quality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCEELL.2014.063085

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 2014 Vol.24 No.3/4, pp.377 - 387

Received: 16 May 2013
Accepted: 24 Aug 2013
Published online: 19 Jul 2014 *

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