Akinbobola (2006) stated that our current educational system is based upon competition among learners for grades, social recognition, scholarship and admission to top schools. Hilk (2013) defined competitive learning as a learning structure that emphasises negative interdependence between students. Individual students or small groups of students strive to outperform the others to achieve the same goal. Hence, in the CL, the learner typically works alone to compete with others or works as part of a group to compete with other groups.
Markussen et al. (2014) claimed that CL leads a specific section of students to expand their horizon and encourage them to achieve more. According to Kolawole (2008) competition fosters and sustains the sense of a win-lose situation, and it is most likely that the smarter students will have most of the rewards and the low achieving students will not be able to achieve the rewards.
Johnson and Johnson (1989), Markussen et al. (2014) stated that CL is based on the individual efforts of a student. However, it can be run between groups by dividing students into groups and encouraging competition between them. This was echoed by Johnson and Johnson, (2013), who claimed that CL could be interpersonal (between individuals) or inter-group (between groups).
Johnson and Johnson (1991) and Markussen et al. (2014) claimed that CL, as a team-based activity, promotes the collaboration aspects of learning. When students formulate their own terms and rules of the contest, giving them ownership of the activity. In other words, applying CL to the activities will lead students within the same group to apply the concept of collaboration, since, everyone is working towards the same goal (to outperform other groups and win the competition). Tingstrom et al. (2006) suggested using team-based competitions to motivate students and modify their behaviour and performance since these students are engaged with other students and stay involved in many activities.
Walters (2000) cited in (Mall-Amiri & Navid Adham, 2013) listed the following factors as the ones that must be considered when applying CL. Firstly, it should be used with students who enjoy competing against each other. Secondly, activities should be prepared to allow most students to have approximately the same chance of winning. Thirdly, it is better to teach students how to compete against themselves rather than competing against each other, which promotes collaborative learning in addition to competitive learning and finally, rewards must be provided for the winners to motivate other participants.
According to Good and Brophy (2008), the competitive activities in the learning process can be productive if most students can win. This can be achieved through team- based competition rather than individual competition. As it offers weaker students an opportunity to be successful, so by varying the teams, one can ensure that in every new competitive activity, new students win or lose. In general, competition might create interest and passion for tasks or topics that otherwise could be perceived as boring or
lacking in interest to students. Thus, intergroup competitions allow students to learn effectively and raise their level of enjoyment, fun and engagement.
Good and Brophy (2008) argued that competition in the classroom would prepare students for competition in their lives beyond school, such as the workplace. One of the drawbacks with CL is that the students might take competition as a way of dealing with life outside the classroom, which might affect their social networking negatively. The necessity for someone to lose, so someone else can win is essential in any competitive activity, which might impact losers’ attitudes negatively, especially if they lose over and over despite their efforts. Therefore, there is a need to vary the applied learning theories that are used inside the classrooms. In other words, not all assignments or tasks should be delivered using competitive learning so as to ensure that a student will not become selfish and push others away. At the same time, all of the assignments or tasks should not be delivered using a collaborative style of learning as students, free riders, could depend on their classmates to implement the tasks and the assignments (Markussen, et al., 2014). It is advisable to have a variety of learning pedagogies to support and fulfil the learning objectives (Good & Brophy, 2008).
Deutsch (1962), Johnson and Johnson (1989) and Lin (1997) claimed that CL could create a negative atmosphere among students as competitive situations are often where students work against each other to achieve a goal that only one or a few can attain. Therefore, in competition, there is a negative interdependence among goal achievers since students perceive that they can obtain their goals if, and only if, other students in the class fail to accomplish their goals.
As a summary of the literature discussed in this section, the following factors need to be considered when applying CL strategy:
The first factor: the competitors’ academic level must be similar or close to
each other, so the higher achieving students will compete together and subsequently, the low achieving students will compete among themselves. This is because if the competition between a strong and a weak student(s), then a teacher can anticipate the result in advance; the active student may not put in an extra effort, and the weak student will not be motivated to prepare well for the competition, because the result is estimated in advance.
where group A has the highest ability and Group D the lowest. Group A should not be placed to compete with group D but should compete with group B, and accordingly, group D can compete with group C. As such, students’ level in group D might be improved even if they lost the competition, due to the interaction with students in group C they potentially could gain some further knowledge. If this process is repeated many times, then students’ level in group D might be improved, so they will be shifted to end up in C. Therefore, they will be qualified to compete with B. After the same repeated process, the students will be qualified to compete with the students in group A. This example demonstrates an advantage of competitive learning in helping make students’ levels more homogeneous.
The second factor: CL should not be used frequently, to prevent losing its value
from the students’ perspective. Furthermore, having numerous competitions between students can create a negative atmosphere, since it is recognised that a friendly atmosphere is required for successful learning.
The third factor: students must be provided with adequate tools, proper content
knowledge, appropriate technology equipment (software and the hardware) and reliable resources and references to be eligible and qualified to enhance CL.