Nash meets Van Valkenburg: A game-theoretic approach to effective learning and teaching in engineering

This work uses game-theoretic approaches to understand the strategic behaviors of students and to achieve an effective teaching and evaluation tool for instructors to adapt their instructions to students´ behaviors. We propose game-theoretic models to quantitatively investigate two specific education scenarios. One is on the curriculum design and the other is on the inventory-based test design for first-year undergraduate level courses. The game-theoretic approach allows us to consider multiple factors into one model and provides solution concepts from a holistic viewpoint combining sociology, psychology and engineering education. In addition, this work provides a theoretic and quantitative basis for future studies on effective learning and teaching in engineering community.