Classroom experiments and exercises

Instructions for a rationing exercise. This workshop exercise is based on an exercise conceived, and used, by Keith Tolley, Darrin Baines and Dave Whynes at the University of Nottingham with medical and allied health professionals. The instructions in this version have been changed by Tracey Sach to better suit a pharmacy student audience. Provided by Tracey Sach, UEA, 2007, with Dave Whyne's permission.

Instructions for a classroom exercise on eliciting and analysing visual analogue scale valuations for EQ-5D health states. This exercise involves students completing a VAS valuation task, and then using their questionnaires as the basis for a structured discussion, and a follow-up exercise to analyse the data from the group. Also provided here, the VAS questionnaire to accompany this exercise. Please note this is provided only for use in this classroom experiment! Exercise developed by Nancy Devlin at City University, 2008.

Tolley and Whynes (1995) The priority setting exercise: an instrument for training in health care resource allocation. Medical Teacher 17(4): 391-398 - provided here with kind permission of Dave Whynes, Nottingham University.

Illustrating Adverse Selection in Health Insurance Markets with a Classroom Game by J. Mellor (2005) (instructions and paper downloadable on RePEc)

Instructions and exercise sheets required to run two classroom experiments (a) a classroom experiment on willingness to pay (WTP) and (b) eliciting Time Trade Off (TTO) values in the classroom. The latter can be demonstrated to students using a simple spreadsheet. These are part of the teaching resources developed to accompany Economic Analysis in Health Care by Morris, Devlin and Parkin (2007) and available via the book's companion website. Reproduced here with kind permission of Wiley.

A classoom experiment on price discrimination in the pharmaceutical industry by Basuchoudury et al (2005).

Full instructions for a Bilateral Trade game successfully used by Alastair Fischer in the Health Economics certificate course at Birkbeck to introduce students (medics and others from diverse backgrounds with no economics training) to the concepts of demand, supply, equilibrium and consumer/producer surplus. Also provided here are the summary sheets, buyer and seller schedules for the transactions, and a set of questions to guide discussion and analysis of the game. The questions at the end of the game can also be used for assessment purposes or as a homework exercise. Kindly provided by Alastair Fischer, 2008.

Note: a considerable number of games and experiments designed to introduce basic microeconomics concepts are available and potentially suitable for use in health economics courses - Charles Holt's University of Virginia website provides a comprehensive source of these experiments.

A classroom experiment in health care markets: a paper outlining a double oral auction in health care, designed to show the effect of a third party payer in health care markets - provided by David Gillette, Truman University, 2007.

A simple pen-and-paper exercise on incremental cost effectiveness ratios, suitable for use with with under-grad students or as an introductory exercise for post-grads, including detailed notes for instructors. This exercise was developed to accompany Economic Analysis in Health Care by Morris, Devlin and Parkin (2007); the instructor notes are provided by Nancy Devlin, 2008.