I am such a fan of using games in the classroom. I have used Jeopardy(c) and others, but never a version of Family Feud (c).  Any tool that can increase student motivation and arouse curiosity to engage even the unengaged is tops in my book,

Laura Sharp

I really enjoyed reading how you implemented games into helping students learn basic psychology skills.  This is a great way to allow students to not only have fun but it allows them to learn and remember things much longer.  Another great resource for this is Fred Jones.  In his book and at his web site, he gives several examples of ways to implement games into the classroom as rewards to help the students not only have fun but to help them learn the objectives that are being covered.  Keep up the great efforts and thank you for sharing such a fun game.  Take care and God Bless.  

One of the challenges that we have with this activity is that it is difficult to assess an outcome measure directly related to learning. Since the game focuses on understanding common misconceptions, does anyone have ideas for a dependent measure that could clearly be linked to learning (but be done in a context of a "live" classroom experience)?

Hi Jean,

I am not sure of a specific answer to your question but I think that you will find that when you use games if you give specific questions and answers that tie into the specific objectives, you will see that there will be higher level of learning.  The questions that they miss will be the ones that they always remember and learn the most from.   You might have a quick round robin wrap up time at the very end to see if everyone grasped or learned the concepts.  It is similar to the "ticket" concept in the classroom that the student writes down the three things they learned from the objectives that day as a ticket to get out of the class.  In this case it might be the three main misconceptions.  I am not sure this answered your question but I hope it helps.  Take care and God Bless.

Matt Hampton

I can appreciate the concept of the game in the classroom to break up the routine  lectures. It should work well in a traditional classroom setting; not sure this can be adapted to online classes easily.

It is a very interesting concept. I believe games such as Jeopardy and trivia could be successful for online classes. I use this method with the classes I teach and it is beneficial.

I haven't tried to adapt this game/activity to the online classroom... looks like this may be the next step!

Being a movie and television lover, the fact that this submission mentioned the shows I most love was alluring!  My husband and I watch Jeopardy every day!  (It does not air on Sundays!)

Being somewhat stuck in the pattern of habit, not having the information presented in 12-point, Times New Roman font was somewhat distracting.  However, the overall message of utilizing game formatting for learning is appealing to me!

I was also thrown by the use of Wikipedia as an academic source.  I encourage learners to avoid this source with GCU writing.  I will have to review my approach! 

I like the author's intent to increase learner engagement in the learning.  While I am sure that today's learners may be more interested in Dr. Phil or Dr. Laura than Gestalt, Piaget, or Maslow; the use of game formatted learning experiences may increase interest in these traditional masters of the field!  In other words, use the games to engage today's learners!

Rae Thompson

Gaming and the use of games in learning is a very hot topic. This is one with a proven record for success, so I am very happy to see more literature and publications on the topic. The use of 'live' class or technology such as tallies might be fun in here too. Even social media or cell phones. I love the integration of SMS too for students. These are increasingly popular in high schools and especially universities. Students not only learn themselves but can interact with the latest techniques- even virtually.

In terms of editing- in some cases psychology is referred to as a proper noun and some cases not.   The capitalization, such as "Psychology courses" then "psychology facts" or "psychology information" is confusion to the reader- not sure the variation, perhaps this should be standardized. One side note, not sure if using Wikipedia in a peer review paper is an accepted practice.

Interesting paper and topic!

The Psychological Feud is a creative tool to engage students and provide a measure of content retention and correction for the beginning and end of a course.   In the abstract, the focus and purpose of the exercise is content driven with a nod toward the teaching relationship of student and instructor.  However, the first part of the paper elevates the use of "personal opinion" and the resulting "counter-attitudinal advocacy" from the learner that the Psychological Feud allows.  But the paper's resulting analysis of questions and answers (table 1) points to the content-discrete category questions as being the measure of learning by the game.  I agree that the change of students' answers to the correct answers may be a measure of reasoning and higher forms of analysis.  The paper may want to help the reader find further tools within the game to aid the student through to analysis.  To find the analytical path that the student takes to produce the result would be an important step in reaching the goals for implementing this game.  This skill of analysis would be a worthy goal for the game and target of research.  Content clarification is not necessarily driven by reason or discovery.  There can be important steps added to the game that propels the student beyond content clarification and simple factual recall.  Having the student create a case for Sigmund Freud as the most important psychologist is a worthy example.  Thus, the game could have the student go beyond a wikipedia driven opinion to a robust academic exercise that calls for higher forms of analysis than identification or clarification of content.  By doing this, the student moves the learning to a place that creates a framework of understanding about a topic.  After the preliminary learning concerning the topic of mass opinion the student could be directed to provide an argument as to why the correct answer is correct.  Let us further use the Freud example.  The student would proceed to analyze Freud's influence within the social science field, the socio-historical impact of Freud, or the impact and shaping upon modern culture.  The result for the student is the move towards knowledge and away from opinion or rote memory.

In conclusion, this paper highlights one of the major issues that engage educators today: the intersection of post-modernism and education.  Two topics of the issue raised by the paper are the place of public opinion in the learning process and the effect of post-modern thought on the learning process.  Presently, our students experience public opinion being elevated and considered as tested knowledge or the directives for action.  This is represented by Wikipedia and TV newscasts that ask listeners to tweet and give their opinion as to what story they want to hear.  It is imperative that the student is given a thorough understanding of opinion and knowledge and tested knowledge (fact).  The paper points out this issue on page 6, "instructor provides between-question feedback on differences between popular beliefs about psychology and actual psychological information."  Since the Psychology Feud relies heavily on public opinion this dialogue, or learning content, needs intentional address by the instructor.  If the student lives with common sense opinion as fact and gains the message that the opinions in the game, opinions any where, or even their opinions are merely an extension of knowledge, then they will not be served well through this game.  Thank you for raising this very important post-modern educational issue.  

Thank you for proposing a pragmatic way of engaging students and keeping them interested in the subject matter, without sacrificing the class objectives.  I find your argument very appealing.  As follows, I am bulleting some comments/suggestions:

• In order to strengthen the presentation and argument of the paper, organization of the material being presented could enhance this paper.  For instance, you could present the method and findings together prior to the proposed game guidelines, or vice versa.
• Also, there is current research (peer reviewed-original research) data available regarding instructional design, game incorporation and enhancing classroom techniques, which if weaved into the supporting research presented, will strengthen your argument.
• Finally, a clear statement of the purpose of the survey given to the students and how it is related to establishing game guidelines or surveying for questions, could help the reader follow your line of thought, as well as being able to replicate it. 

Games always make it more interesting and the students tend to remember more of what they are learning. The online students are no different than the ones on ground. They enjoy the change in teaching approaches and can appreciate a change in style as well.