Muruganantham 1

Kaaviya Muruganantham

Professor Adrienne Cassel

ENG 1201 Online

1 Aug 2019

Competition and Its Effect on Academic Performance

Sweat dripping down her back, she realizes that she has to get a 95 on this test. She has to

or she will never get to go to the college of her dreams. Someone else will beat her to the last

spot available in the science program that she has been eyeing since the 9th grade. This is how a

lot of students feel when taking tests. Nowadays, it seems as if their whole life depends on

whether they pass this test or ace that performance. Surprisingly, this might not actually be a bad

thing in small doses. Healthy competition among students motivates them more, improves their

academic performance, as well as helps them succeed in the future.

Competition has proven to be helpful to many students through various studies. A group

of professors in Taiwan conducted a study in 2018 to see how peer competition affected the

students’ performance. The overall result of the experiment was that the kids that experienced

competition outperformed the kids that did not experience competition(the control group). The

experimental groups also showed more signs of intrinsic motivation (Ching-Huei et al. 2018).

This shows us that kids were more likely to want to perform better on their own for their own

fulfillment rather than being forced by another to succeed. Usually, if there is no competition

(and consequently no motivation), a lot of kids will not have a drive to excel in their studies.

They would probably only try to achieve good grades because their parents scolded them into

doing so. This clearly shows us that competition affects academic performance in a positive way
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and even has other benefits for the respective students. One interesting fact to note about this

study is that it was held in Taiwan. Asian countries are notorious for their high-competition

environment and in turn their really successful student body. This, in itself, shows that there is a

positive correlation between competition and performance.

An important point that would get brought up during this conversation of academic

competition, is if it is actually worth it. Is it worth it to put our students through mental strain and

stress so they can score better on a test? Megan Lunny wrote an article about her local school in

2017 and how competition used to arise around the start of junior year, but now she saw it

among 7th graders. She says that trophies, awards, and certificates have gotten to all the

students’ heads and perpetuates the air of competition and paranoia. The situation that Lunny

addresses is apparent in schools all over the country and some schools have attempted to

improve the conditions students experience. She also says, “...few people will genuinely

congratulate you for the award…” (Lunny 2017). When students are being pitted against one

another, there will be less encouragement going around and more resentment. All felicitations

students give one another will become half-hearted and a subconscious feeling of being less

worthy will be more apparent.

There are many schools that have gotten rid of the title of valedictorian and salutatorian.

These titles are awarded to the students who have the highest GPAs of their graduating class.

Many of these title holders have talked about how they wish they had been able to be more laid

back in high school and regret that they did not have more fun. If a kid goes to a school like the

one many students attend, the kid will see that people are constantly looking for ways to get
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ahead because there are not that many opportunities. Some kids get so lost in this race that they

forgot what they are doing it all for.

This is a dilemma that many high schools will have to face. Should they have a title of

valedictorian or salutatorian to hand out to students? It is a pretty gray line, deciding when

competition between students gets too rowdy. This is why so many students deal with such strife

while in their high school careers. Schools do not know where to draw the line and end up never

drawing it and letting it go too far. The line for going too far is also different for each student

which adds on to the confusing situation.

What happens after high school? Kids go to college and start learning in a more specific

path so that they can excel in your profession when they eventually start your career. To further

understand what this means, clarification is provided by the article written by Malcolm Harris.

He has also written a book more in depth about the young generation and their future regarding

finances. Harris brings up an interesting point about the meaningless race to the top. He says that

while students are learning and achieving more, they are not gaining anything from their hard

work. This is because companies used to pay their employees to get specific training so they

could be preeminent in their respective fields. Eventually, “...​all [the peers] can do is drive one

another to anxiety, depression, paranoia and exhaustion”(Harris 2017). In other words, as

students become more and more decorated, the spots for colleges and jobs are not going to be

opening up more. The kids will just end up running an impossible race where neither party really

wins. ​Now that students are fighting to be the most decorated potential candidate, companies no

longer have to pay for employees to get extra training. They are already trained through

schooling they paid for themselves. While this is a huge win for companies and corporations, this
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is a giant step backwards for the well being of students. This system is in favor of corporations

who want to pay less to train their employees and as a result, the kids who worked very hard get

little to no financial benefit from competing so hard. They are throwing themselves into a state of

oblivion, blindsided by the fervor to get a well-paying job in the future. Harris really pushes on

his audience that it is time to give a rest to the unruly competition and let kids take a break. It

might even help them!

Now, so far it has been established that is important to put a stop to chaotic competition.

Although, it is beneficial to implement healthy competition among students. There is a saying

that goes “everything is good in moderation”. This does not fall short for competition. A scholar

project written by Andrea Heinrich delves deep into this idea. She talks about how competition is

subjective and the same amount is going to benefit everybody in the same way. She talks about

how it is really in the hands of counselors and other adults in the school to justly lead a student to

achieve his or her potential. She also says that if academic competition is used correctly it could

help all students to be better in school(Heinrich 2014). Essentially every student is like a

snowflake, they all have different needs and palatable levels of competition. If the corresponding

counselors and teachers in the schools work together, they could essentially make a fitting group

that each kid could fit into to have a perfect amount of competition that could boost their work

and performance. It is the counselor’s responsibility to assess a student’s needs and understand if

they flourish due to competition or wilt because of it.

If a student is not placed in a group accustomed to the way they perform, competition

could worsen their academic performance. Annie Murphy Paul, a writer for Time Magazine,

talks about how competition is only effective when it is a close race between students. She says
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that competition can only improve performance if students are competing against students of

similar caliber. If they are not, they are more likely to lose hope and perform worse (Paul 2013).

Imagine a group of students who are able to succeed in Advanced Chemistry without

studying for more than 4 hours a week. Then there is one peer who does not succeed in the class

but they study for well over 15 hours. The range between the peer’s scores and theirs is already

so large, the peer start to think that there is no point in even trying to bridge the gap. The peer

stops studying often and now studies for less than 2 hours a week. This is a situation that many

have found themselves in, and this is because sometimes students are not given the right

environment to thrive and grow. If the student was getting low scores because of their

self-esteem, is it really their fault or the fault of the environment they were placed in? To

improve this student’s scores, they would need a support system. More specifically, other

students with the same mental prowess that could both push them enough to succeed but not

push them too much that they fail. Now, this does not mean that students of lower caliber should

not associate with students of higher caliber. Research shows that when kids with a lower

understanding are paired with kids with a higher understanding, the kids with the lower

understanding do substantially better. Simply put, same caliber for competition and differing

caliber for study groups and motivation. Competition should measure effort not ability. The

person that wins a fair competition should be the one that worked the hardest. This statement is

upheld when kids of the same mental prowess are paired with each other for competition.

Another factor that could jeopardize academic performance is stereotype threat. When

kids are aware that they are being evaluated, they tend to do a lot worse. A study held at

Princeton, had 2 groups of white and black students. One group knew that their intelligence was
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being evaluated while the other group just thought they were solving puzzles and did the tasks

without a worry(Paul 2013). Stereotype plays in to this because while the white students

performed similarly in both groups, the black students performed significantly worse, when they

knew they were being evaluated. Stereotype threat is when someone is aware of a stereotype they

are associated with and become at risk for acting in accordance with it. This is one of the main

reasons why such stereotypes of academic performance still persist. Whether it be male vs

female or white vs black, stereotypes continue to threaten and misinform the actual ability of an

individual. When people are in a competitive setting, they know that they are getting

evaluated/judged. So the stereotype threat will work no different and continue to mess with

academic performance of students. If the competition they were facing was less intense, students

could probably feel more at ease and this factor could be less detrimental when showing the

facts.

Competition also improves academic performance depending on the grade level. A study

held in Chile by another group of professors came to a conclusion that children in 4th grade

responded to competition better than those in high school (Chumacero et al. 2016). This could be

because competition is more fun when people are younger because they do not really feel the

need to succeed in order to survive the workforce. When kids are younger and are competing

with their peers it is more fun and playful and while they are in high school it is a race to the top.

The study also delved into the competition involving private and public schools. The results

turned out to be the same: competition enhances academic performance. So the overall theme,

from this study was the competition was good for most students and did not really hurt them.
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It is also very interesting that academic competition starts as early as intermediate school.

In some schools, honors programs are starting as early as 4th grade. Kids are starting to be taught

from a young age that, the faster they start running the race, the easier they will be able to reach

your goal. The ideas from the study addressed above seems to be implemented into schools

already. Schools did learn that competition is very effective around the ages of intermediate

school kids, so it makes sense that schools are trying to take advantage of that and get kids ahead

while they can.

It is vital to realize that academic performance and mastery do not always go hand in

hand. Good academic performance means that they scored well on a test of some sort. Mastery

means that a student fully understand the given topic and could teach it to another student if they

had to. This idea is touched on by a scholar project written by Nicholas Mazza. While

competition might enhance performance, the mastery part is sacrificed. Mazza talks about how

mastery and performance do not go hand in hand and competition also makes students feel worse

when they do not achieve their goals (Mazza 2018). A highly competitive student who always

performs the way they aspire to will suddenly feel at a loss when they no longer are able to

achieve such scores. This is often apparent in well performing high schoolers who suddenly start

failing tests in college. While high-school tends to hold your hand, true independence is felt

when time is spent in college and that is what challenges a student’s work ethic the most. What is

becoming more and more apparent in the school system is that it is focusing on academic

performance instead of actually trying to learn the material that is taught. As a student, kids are

often taught how to use tricks on a test in order to get a better score rather than just studying

more material. Kids learn how to take a test, not how to apply the knowledge they gained.
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Often, students only learn enough to get to a specific letter grade. In many school an 89.5

counts as an A, so people “learn” enough to achieve the letter grade then immediately forget the

information they gathered for the test by the next class period. While schools strive for better

academic performance, they need to strive harder to get the kids to actually learn what they are

being taught, rather than practice how to regurgitate facts on a piece of paper. This is an

important topic to discuss when talking about academic performance, because for a kid’s

success, it should be more than a percentage on a paper. If a kid is striving for a specific grade

rather than a specific level of understanding, that’s when it can be confirmed that the American

school system is heading in the wrong direction. Students and parents need to be well-informed

that school and grades really only matter if they are able to make use of what they learn. Chasing

a grade is not going to help in the long run and will put more pressure on a student rather than

make them a better person because of it. Parents also have to take the initiative to make sure they

lead their children to make good decisions when they choose their classes. They need to teach

them that it is better to challenge themselves with a class that they will enjoy studying for than a

class that will look good on their resume.

Competition is present everywhere from just casual talk to winning awards. Kids would

be having a conversation with their friends and it would somehow lead to which person got the

least amount of sleep the night before. Of course, no one is bragging about how they are sleep

deprived but they are bragging about what it implies: they are hardworking. It is routine to hear a

peer say “Dude, I went to sleep at 3 a.m. because I was studying for the physics test today”. This

is just a single example of the petty competition that occurs in our schools.
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Science Fair allows students to actually learn while they are putting together their

projects. A lot of students take part in the Science Fair with less agitation because there is no 1st,

2nd, or 3rd. There are merely 5 words that determine if your project was amazing or terrible. The

5 words are insufficient, satisfactory, good, excellent, and superior (in ascending order). Superior

is the highest award a participant can receive for their project and it is not limited to only one

person. Students will not be worried that someone else’s project seems better than theirs because

they both can get a superior. All the students aren’t competing to get the #1 spot and win over

all. This activity is considered a form of healthy competition because while the students are

competing to get a good response from the judges, they are not opposing each other. This sense

of community among the students participating Science Fair is important in any competition so

the environment does not get too intense with contention.

The last thing to talk about is how to mend this problem of rivalry among students. A lot

of the competition that students endure can be monitored by adults in the school environment.

Counselors, teachers, and principals all have power over how much work a student will take on

because they create the curriculums. If they are able to do everything in their power to control

the spread of competition, the world could already be looking at better school systems. Schools

should take initiative to also educate parents and let them know it is better for their kids health to

take it easy during high school years. There really is no need to burn kids out in high school, as

long as they are doing something they are passionate about and something they can uniquely

excel at. Like the saying quality over quantity, it is better for students to compete in things they

really care about rather than in every aspect of their high school career. A way for kids to handle

competition if there is no other way to battle it, is to try thinking about the competition like a
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game or a challenge. People tend to be less afraid of these things, and working in cases like this

could probably take the anxiety and stress off of some students.

Overall, competition is beneficial and sometimes essential for students to succeed in

school. The push from other students and the drive that forms in oneself is necessary for students

to desire to perform well in school. The foremost indispensable idea when discussing

competition, is learning how to keep it from becoming unmanageable. Controlled competition is

best for students to be challenged while also thriving in the learning environment. Most of the

people that were against competition held such positions because competition in schools usually

becomes too obstreperous. It is essential to involve not just students, but also teachers, parents,

and administration into the discussion to make sure that the competition does not get out of hand.

This is a responsibility that more schools need to obtain and work on because if it is not fixed,

there is no telling how the future will look for our children.

Fig 1. ​Denver Post, 2002. ​ ​This cartoon shows that kids are turning into test-taking robots. The student took the interview like a
test and was confused when the interviewer asked him a question about his qualifications. This is tricky for the student because
he grew up in the education system not needing to know the information on a test but the format and how to work around the test.
The cartoon implies that the answer to the interviewer’s question is that the public school system has only qualified the student
for test-taking. This cartoon ties into competition because this is how a lot of kids are turning out because their main focus is to
get ahead, not to understand what they are learning. This leads to them to not know how to function when it comes to real world
problems.
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Works Cited

Chen, Ching-Huei, et al. “The Effects of Peer Competition-Based Science Learning Game on

Secondary Students’ Performance, Achievement Goals, and Perceived Ability.”

Computer Source,​ Sinclair Library, Apr. 2018.

Chumacero, Romulo, et al. “Competition Pressures and Academic Performance in Chile.”

Fuente Academica​, Sinclair Library, 2016.

Harris , Malcolm. “Competition Is Ruining Childhood. The Kids Should Fight Back.” ​New York

Times,​ 6 Dec. 2017.

Heinrich, Andrea. ​THE Effects of Competition In The K-12 School Setting And Its Relationship

To Behavior Modification​. 2014.

Keefe, Mike. “Effect of Standardized Tests on Public Education.” Denver Post, 2002.

Lunny, Megan. “Grade Wars: Academic Competition Has Turned High School Classrooms into

Boxing Rings.” Bucks County Courier Times, 18 May 2017,

www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/366330fc-34cb-11e7-8b75-8bbc4b841277.html.

Mazza, Nicholas. ​Competition: Motivating or Declination of Academic Success​. 5 Mar. 2018,

scholarworks.bgsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1484&context=honorsprojects.

Paul, Annie Murphy. “Can Tough Competition Hinder Academic Performance?” ​Time,​ Time, 22

Feb. 2013,

ideas.time.com/2013/02/22/can-tough-competition-hinder-academic-performance/.