USING PREDICTION MARKETS TO CREATE AN ACTIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN LARGE GROUPS

This paper demonstrates how prediction markets can be used to help students develop the full range of information literacy skills. In addition, participation in a prediction market encourages deeper investigation and sensitises participants to information relevant to the topic when they encounter it. By linking the decision scenarios to real world problems, this teaching strategy familiarises students with decision-making scenarios that exist in their professional lives, providing the opportunity to examine/apply the theoretical underpinnings of their discipline. In this way it helps students to understand how academic knowledge will improve their performance in their future career. The approach also benefits the affective domain. The group nature of prediction markets creates an environment that activates peer- to-peer discussion and debate. The real world problems that will be the focus of the decision scenarios will ground the module for students, helping them to see how theory informs practice in the real world, thus increasing engagement in the educational process.