Epistemic Game Research Articles

The Race to the Bottom Revisited: International Labour Law, Global Trade and Evolutionary Game Theory

Abstract This article revisits the ‘race to the bottom’ in international labour law, in light of new developments in evolutionary and epistemic game theory and considering new empirical findings on the economic effects of labour rights. Accordingly, it explores two solutions to this collective action problem not previously analysed in labour law literature—‘indeterminate play’ and the ‘correlating device’—and it shows how these solutions relate to international trade law and international labour law. Moreover, a new perspective is offered, according to which international labour law and international trade law can be complementary in fostering global co-operation on labour regulation and in supporting development efforts. Through a novel characterisation of global labour governance according to three game theoretical models, this study ultimately highlights the importance of freedom of association and collective bargaining in enhancing co-operation among states and promoting processes by which countries’ social and economic development can be incrementally raised.

Characterizing mathematical problem solving in physics-related workplaces using epistemic games

Physics problems investigated in professional workplaces go beyond textbook problems typically studied in PER; it is important for PER to include the demands of these workplaces in studies related to problem solving in physics instruction.

Students’ Epistemic Game according to SOLO Taxonomy in Completing Fluid Mechanics Problem

The purpose of this study is to describe the students’ epistemic game of high physics-capable. This study is qualitative. The participants are students taking fluid mechanics courses. The collect data of this study use fluid mechanics test, physics understanding test, and interview. The understanding test determines the students’ understanding level, while the determining students’ epistemic game by SOLO taxonomy uses the fluid mechanic's test. The students complete the first test by using mapping mathematics to meaning at a relational level and transliteration to mathematics at a multi structural level. Pictorial analysis in level extended abstract and transliteration to mathematics in level relational are used by the students in completing the problem of the second test. Meanwhile, this study result showed that mapping mathematics to the meaning and recursive plug and chug at a relational level is used by the students for completing the third test. Furthermore, the students completing the fourth test used transliteration to mathematics and recursive plug and chug at a relational level The students’ epistemic game by SOLO taxonomy of this study can be used to develop physics learning. Keywords: epistemic game, SOLO taxonomy, fluid mechanics

Superrational types

AbstractWe present a formal analysis of Douglas Hofstadter’s concept of superrationality. We start by defining superrationally justifiable actions, and study them in symmetric games. We then model the beliefs of the players, in a way that leads them to different choices than the usual assumption of rationality by restricting the range of conceivable choices. These beliefs are captured in the formal notion of type drawn from epistemic game theory. The theory of coalgebras is used to frame type spaces and to account for the existence of some of them. We find conditions that guarantee superrational outcomes.

Mathematical problem solving and learning in an architecture-themed epistemic game

This mixed methods study is aimed to examine the feasibility of integrating mathematical problem solving with architectural design via a 3D epistemic simulation game to promote active mathematics learning for middle-school students. The experimental-control pretest/posttest group design was adopted to examine whether the experience of interacting with an architecture simulation game would improve students’ math knowledge for and performance of problem solving. Data were collected from 61 6th graders via both quantitative and qualitative methods, including math problem-solving and mental rotation tests, video- and screen-capture of game play behaviors, observation, as well as game logs. The study results indicated that the gaming group performed significantly better than the non-gaming control group in the math context problem solving test. The infield observation and participants’ gaming behavior analysis suggested that the learning and practice of mathematical problem solving during gaming is a cognizant and planned endeavor framed by carefully designed game actions and objects.

Epistemic video game for education in wildfire response: a pilot study

A priority for sustainable development is education in the reduction of the risk of a disaster. Disasters have a profound effect in societies and their economies. Undergraduate students are seldom trained to engage in authentic emergencies. Video game technology may provide an educational tool for promoting the acquisition of new knowledge. Epistemic video games are educational video games that facilitate the development of knowledge through simulated scenarios relevant to the professional practice. This article presents the design and evaluation of an epistemic video game developed to simulate the emergency management of a disaster scenario (wildfires). The learning outcomes are analysed regarding cognitive processes. The results of this pilot study would indicate that this video game technology could have a significant role in the education of undergraduate students in disaster risk management.

Modeling Conceptualization and Investigating Teaching Effectiveness

Our research addresses the issue of teaching and learning concepts in science education as an empirical question. We study the process of conceptualization by closely examining the unfolding of classroom lesson sequences. We situate our work within the practice turn line of research on epistemic practices in science education. We also adopt a practice turn approach when it comes to the learning of concepts, as we consider conceptualization as being inherent within epistemic practices. In our work, pedagogical practices are modeled as learning games and epistemic practices in science education are characterized as enacted epistemic games emerging through the unfolding of learning games. Science practices are modeled as source epistemic games since they are the source of the knowledge at stake in pedagogical practices. From this point, we examine closely how playing learning games can enable students to play enacted epistemic games and then in turn the source epistemic games at the core of conceptual understanding. Thus, the main contribution of this paper is to link pedagogical practices to epistemic practices in science education and to science practices in general. Our method is consistent with this epistemological framework as our case study on the concept of earthquakes in a 5th grade classroom sequence illustrates. Following an investigation of two experienced teachers and their classes during a teaching unit, our analysis shows how teaching effectiveness is determined by a dialectic. This entails on the one hand a didactic continuity between learning games and enacted epistemic games and, on the other, an epistemic continuity between enacted epistemic games and source epistemic games.

Sensemaking epistemic game: A model of student sensemaking processes in introductory physics

Towards a model of student sensemaking that can inform the creation of more effective learning environments.

Epistemic games in substance characterization

Problem solving is lauded as beneficial, but students do not all learn well by solving problems. Using the resources framework, Tuminaro J., and Redish E. F., (2007), Elements of a cognitive model of physics problem solving: Epistemic games,Physical Review Special Topics-Physics Education Research,3(2), 020101 suggested that, for physics students, this puzzle may be partially understood by paying attention to underlying epistemological assumptions that constrain the approaches students take to solving problems while working on them. They developed an approach to characterizing epistemic games, which are context-sensitive knowledge elements concerning the nature of knowledge, knowing and learning. As there is evidence that context-activated knowledge influences problem solving by students in chemistry, we explored identifying epistemic games in students’ problem solving in chemistry. We interviewed 52 students spanning six courses from grade 8 through fourth-year university, each solving 4 problems. Using 16 contexts with substance characterization problems, we identified 5 epistemic games with ontological and structural stability that exist in two larger epistemological frames. All of these epistemic games are present at all educational levels, but some appear to grow in across educational levels as others recede. Some games also take lesser and greater precedence depending on the problem and the chemistry course in which students are enrolled and the context of the problem. We analyze these results through a frame of learning progressions, paying attention to students’ ideas and how these ideas are contextualized. Based on this analysis, we propose teaching acts that instructors may use to leverage the natural progressions of how students appear to grow in their capacity to solve problems.

Games in linguistics

In this paper we set out three consequences of a game-theoretic model for conversation, Message Exchange (ME) Games (Asher et al., 2016), which we think are of linguistic interest. We develop a notion of conversational success, explain subjectivity and bias in interpretation using concepts from epistemic game theory, and characterize the strategic usefulness of using so called expressions of “not at issue” content using ME games.

Epistemic Game Theory: Putting Algorithms to Work

Epistemic Game Theory: Putting Algorithms to Work

Reinventing discovery learning: a field-wide research program

Whereas some educational designers believe that students should learn new concepts through explorative problem solving within dedicated environments that constrain key parameters of their search and then support their progressive appropriation of empowering disciplinary forms, others are critical of the ultimate efficacy of this discovery-based pedagogical philosophy, citing an inherent structural challenge of students constructing historically achieved conceptual structures from their ingenuous notions. This special issue presents six educational research projects that, while adhering to principles of discovery-based learning, are motivated by complementary philosophical stances and theoretical constructs. The editorial introduction frames the set of projects as collectively exemplifying the viability and breadth of discovery-based learning, even as these projects: (a) put to work a span of design heuristics, such as productive failure, surfacing implicit know-how, playing epistemic games, problem posing, or participatory simulation activities; (b) vary in their target content and skills, including building electric circuits, solving algebra problems, driving safely in traffic jams, and performing martial-arts maneuvers; and (c) employ different media, such as interactive computer-based modules for constructing models of scientific phenomena or mathematical problem situations, networked classroom collective “video games,” and intercorporeal master–student training practices. The authors of these papers consider the potential generativity of their design heuristics across domains and contexts.

Epistemic gameplay and discovery in computational model-based inquiry activities

In computational modeling activities, learners are expected to discover the inner workings of scientific and mathematical systems: First elaborating their understandings of a given system through constructing a computer model, then “debugging” that knowledge by testing and refining the model. While such activities have been shown to support science learning, difficulties building and using computational models are common and reduce learning benefits. Drawing from Collins and Ferguson (Educ Psychol 28(1):25–42, 1993), we conjecture that a major cause for such difficulties is a misalignment between the epistemic games (modeling strategies) learners play, and the epistemic forms (model types) a given modeling environment is designed to support. To investigate, we analyzed data from a study in which ten groups of U. S. fifth graders (n = 28) worked to create stop motion animations and agent-based computational models (ABMs) to discover the particulate nature of matter. Content analyses revealed that (1) groups that made progress—that is, that developed increasingly mechanistic, explanatory models—focused on elements, movement, and interactions when developing their models, a strategy well-aligned with both animation and ABM; (2) groups that did not make progress focused on sequences of phases, a strategy well-aligned with animation but not with ABM; and (3) struggling groups progressed when they received guidance about modeling strategies, but not when they received guidance about model content. We present summary analyses and three vignettes to illustrate these findings, and share implications for research and curricular design.

A REFINED ACCOUNT OF THE "EPISTEMIC GAME": EPISTEMIC NORMS, TEMPTATIONS, AND EPISTEMIC COOPERATION

Abstract In "Epistemic Norms and the ’Epistemic Game’ They Regulate" (2017, 367—382), we advance a general case for the idea that epistemic norms regulating the production of beliefs might usefully be understood as social norms. There, we drew on the influential account of social norms developed by Cristina Bicchieri, and we managed to give a crude recognizable picture of important elements of what are recognizable as central epistemic norms. Here, we consider much needed elaboration, suggesting (again, highly idealized) models that help one think about epistemic communities and, ultimately, the temptations confronted in one’s epistemic life. We suggest that once "the epistemic game" is embedded into a wider set of gains and losses, one can understand the epistemic choice situation as a form of mixed-motive game. This allows one to understand epistemic games more straightforwardly using Bicchieri’s framework for thinking about social norms. That is, once the choice situation denominated only in terms of classical epistemic gains and losses is embedded in a wider accounting of goods that may compete with the production of true beliefs, one can see how an agent’s individual and community epistemic project can be furthered by social norms regulating epistemic practices. We recommend thinking of epistemic norms as analogous to social norms for hygiene.

EPISTEMIC NORMS AND THE "EPISTEMIC GAME" THEY REGULATE: THE BASIC STRUCTURED EPISTEMIC COSTS AND BENEFITS

Abstract This paper is a beginning--an initial attempt to think of the function and character of epistemic norms as a kind of social norm. We draw on social scientific thinking about social norms and the social games to which they respond. Assume that people individually follow epistemic norms for the sake of acquiring a stock of true beliefs. When they live in groups and share information with each other, they will in turn produce a shared store of true beliefs, an epistemic public good. True beliefs, produced individually or in groups, constitute an epistemic good—one commonly stockpiled and distributed within a community. Epistemic norms can then be understood as a kind of socially developed and transmitted normative sensibility having to do with the production of this individual and public good. Epistemic norms should serve to regulate this practice—coordinating the practice of individuals so as to afford the benefits of life in an interdependent epistemic community—and to manage the risks of being epistemically dependent on others within such a community. Here, we provide some attempts to characterize the central aspects of "the epistemic game"—the epistemic choice situation confronted by communities of epistemic agents.

Epistemic fluency and professional education: innovation, knowledgeable action and actionable knowledge by L. Markauskaite and P. Goodyear

With a strong emphasis on epistemic games, this book is itself a game changer by defining transdisciplinary perspectives of professional education and professional learning. For educators of pre-service or in-service teachers, this book is even more important as it offers an alternative to conventional understandings of cognition and learning, and an array of strategies that may also be relevant to the way we teach in secondary and primary contexts. While the authors tend to approach thinking and learning from a cognitive science perspective, it is the adoption of perspectives from diverse epistemological and ontological origins that makes this book unique: as the author’s contend with broadening the conventional cognitive sciences world-view...

Mindreading and endogenous beliefs in games

We argue that a Bayesian explanation of strategic choices in games requires introducing a psychological theory of belief formation. We highlight that beliefs in epistemic game theory are derived from the actual choice of the players, and cannot therefore explain why Bayesian rational players should play the strategy they actually chose. We introduce the players’ capacity of mindreading in a game theoretical framework with the simulation theory, and characterise the beliefs that Bayes rational players could endogenously form in games. We show in particular that those beliefs need not be ratifiable, and therefore that rational players can form action-dependent beliefs.

Playing the interdisciplinary game across education–medical education boundaries: sites of knowledge, collaborative identities and methodological innovations

ABSTRACTThis paper aims to interrogate the potential and challenges in interdisciplinary working across disciplinary boundaries by examining a longitudinal partnership designed to research student experiences of digital technologies in undergraduate medicine established by the authors of this paper (one from Education and the other from Medical Education). The paper is situated in current methodological trends including the changing value of replicability and evidence-based methods and increases in qualitative and mixed methods studies in medical education, whilst education research has seen growing encouragement for randomized controlled trials and large-scale quantitative studies. A critical analysis of the partnership interactions is framed by Holland’s positional and imagined identities, negotiated across ‘figured’ worlds and the concept of epistemic games that guide knowledge construction. We consider social, political and cultural challenges; and how ‘in-between’ sites of knowledge were established where the academic identity of each was shaped by engaging with the other and new theoretical, methodological and ethical understandings were co-constructed. The paper concludes that despite the ongoing challenges, ‘bottom-up’ partnerships can contribute to a growth in interdisciplinarity which might itself be understood as a boundary object. Interdisciplinarity necessitates improvisation and boundary crossing and can, therefore, always be considered a matter of negotiation, creativity and collaboration.

Epistemic Game Theory and Logic: Introduction

Epistemic game theory and the systems of logic that support it are crucial for understanding rational behavior in interactive situations in which the outcome for an agent depends, not just on her own behavior, but also on the behavior of those with whom she is interacting. Scholars in many fields study such interactive situations, that is, games of strategy. [...]

A Non-Self-Referential Paradox in Epistemic Game Theory

In game theory, the notion of a player's beliefs about the game players' beliefs about other players' beliefs arises naturally. In this paper, we present a non-self-referential paradox in epistemic game theory which shows that completely modeling players' epistemic beliefs and assumptions is impossible. Furthermore, we introduce an interactive temporal assumption logic to give an appropriate formalization of the new paradox. Formalizing the new paradox in this logic shows that there is no complete interactive temporal assumption model.