The snakes and ladders of research: using a board game to teach the pitfalls of undergraduate research design

Abstract

The Snakes and Ladders of Research is a board game aimed at summarising and reinforcing the pitfalls and virtues of research design in undergraduate research projects. The game was used as part of a second‐year research design course, in which an attempt was made to transfer knowledge of good and bad research practices from a passive learning environment to an active one. When played with two undergraduate classes the game was well received and the short‐term recall of good and bad research practices averaged 73%.

Keywords:

• Undergraduate research projects
• board game