Another boring day: you walk into math class, write down the homework, and prepare for the lesson. Your eyes scan the class as your teacher begins to slowly hand out the scores from a recent test. Immediately, you and the other students perk up. The classroom quickly fills with the sounds of passionate debates and stunned inquiries. Despite knowing that only our own scores affect our own final grades. So, why are we so curious about how our peers perform? “What’d you get?” “What’s your score?” “How’d you do so well!?”
This flurry of questions is fueled by the academic competition between friends and classmates that is seen in almost every classroom. These questions do not have to come from a place of jealousy or envy, but rather from friendly competition and the motivation it brings with it.
Humans naturally want to compete and this primal instinct manifests itself within an often docile setting, the classroom. Comparing scores is beneficial because it drives students to push themselves and constantly vie for better scores.
Additionally, competition in the classroom is not just limited to friends comparing grades.
A healthy competition between peers is also encouraged by teachers in the form of review games, points awarded for answering questions and projects that encourage students to produce their best work possible.
The friendly competition between peers boosts motivation and gives students extra incentive to study and excel. The additional level of passion that competition demands leads students to become the best version of themselves in the classroom. In an article by American Heritage School, it is stated academic competition can boost many metrics that would positively affect learning.
“Research shows that competition can drive attention, physical effort, and learning. The social motivation of competing against one’s peers can challenge a student to work much harder on his or her tasks than he or she would independently feel compelled to do so” according to “The Pros and Cons of Academic Competition.”
Academic competition is an exterior motive for students as it incentivizes them to try to surpass their peers by better understanding the content they learn. To beat their friends, students begin to apply themselves to their learning and studying with a heightened level of engagement and a greater interest in topics. Academic competition is one of the best motivators in class due to the fact it provides students with an additional challenge that constantly pushes them for better results.
Another boring day: you leave your classroom, go to lunch, and then go home. But today you leave with a smile because finally you scored higher than all of your friends on the math test that you studied so hard for.