Cheating on a Game Theory Exam
UCLA Professor Peter Nonacs teaches a Behavioral Economics class and he allowed his students to cheat on his Game Theory Exam. According to Professor Nonacs, he told his class “the Game Theory exam would be insanely hard.” And he also stated that because the exam will be so hard he would allow them to cheat. He told them they “could bring and use anything or anyone they liked, including animal behavior experts. They could surf the Web. They could talk to each other or call friends who’d taken the course before. They could offer me bribes.” After he made the announcement he noticed how his class changed. They started to live out game theory discussing what the payoff matrix was and what kinds of strategies would be best. He noticed that a group of students, who normally did not even speak to each other, came together to focus on one single task. In the end the students were able to work together in an organized manner and received a high grade for the exam.
This is an explicit example of the topic of Game Theory. Students are normally accustomed to a strategy of studying hard in order to compete with fellow classmates, but through this experience the students learned to choose the best strategy for themselves and the group. The students also were able to comb through the different possible strategies when they were having discussions about whether they should work in one large group or work in smaller subgroups, and even in the discussions about the people who didn’t study and were planning to parasitize everyone else’s hard work. The discussions were about which strategies would lead them to the greatest payoff, which in this case was the grade that they received. Going through strategies and the different payoffs the students essentially lived out game theory rather than simply learning about it.
the students were able to work together in an organized manner and received a high grade for the exam.
LINK:WHY I LET MY STUDENTS CHEAT ON THEIR GAME THEORY EXAM