Game theory applications in educational decision-making

Educational decision-making involves complex interactions among multiple stakeholders. This paper adopts an integrated game-theoretic framework combining static Nash equilibrium, mixed strategies, evolutionary game theory and prospect theory to analyse strategic behaviours in education. We examine five typical game scenarios including academic cheating, school attendance management, curriculum design, private tutoring and educational resource allocation. All payoff parameters are empirically calibrated, and sensitivity tests are conducted to verify result robustness. The results show that individual rational choices often lead to collectively suboptimal outcomes such as educational inequality and educational involution. Bounded rationality and loss aversion further solidify inefficient equilibria. Targeted policy interventions can adjust strategic incentives and guide the education system towards social optimum.