Combining Fun and Learning in Principles of Economics Courses

This paper describes a game used in Principles of Economics classes to increase student interest, participation and learning. The game is similar to the Jeopardy television show. Six classes of principles of microeconomics and principles of macroeconomics played the game during two semesters. I announced the dates of game playing in advance. I changed the rules of the game between the two semesters to reflect the student comments from the first semester. A maximum of ten students played in a given time period. I asked the rest to answer the question if players/contestants could not. Like Jeopardy, the players chose the textbook chapters from which questions were drawn. Students participated by contributing questions, playing, making questions that nobody could answer, and answering the questions that the players could not answer. Rewards took the form of grades, extra-credit points, and cookies. The paper describes the game, presents results, highlights some students' feedback, and compares test performance of classes that used the game to a class that did not.