Strategic Decision-Making In Student Duos: A Game Theory Investigation Of Procrastination And Task Completion

This study examines how students choose to work or postpone the task assigned when working in pairs or teams. Using game theory tools, including payoff matrices, dominant strategies, Nash equilibrium and mixed strategy equilibrium, we explored the possible strategies different types of students use. For the investigation, we considered two types of students: hardworking and unmotivated. We also explored the possible factors that influence the utility gained from the task. Based on these, we built two types of games with different combinations of players. The key findings were able to demonstrate that unmotivated student pairs default to procrastination (incomplete tasks), hardworking pairs achieve prompt completion, and mixed duos create free-riding dynamics that demotivate diligent students, with extended models revealing impacts on efficiency and workload distribution, providing a theoretical foundation for optimising student collaboration.