Questions about competition, grades, and study

[Eriny]

I'm really curious about what others think on the following questions (I've just been randomly thinking about this subject recently)

1. Would you study as hard as you do now if you weren't in direct competition with other students? Or, if you aren't in direct competition with other students (i.e. you aren't graded to a curve) would being in competition make a difference?

2. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded? i.e. just for personal satisfaction. What if you got to pick the curriculum and assessment schemes based on your interests?

3. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded but, as a small group (say, less than 5 of you) you all committed to finishing a project you were all really interested in and even though there weren't any contracts or anything, you knew that other members of the group were relying on you to do your part?

I think these are hard question, For me personally, I'd work just as hard if I weren't in direct competition with other students, but I probably do need to be graded to some extent (maybe not a number necessarily, but I'd need some level of feedback). With the group thing - I'm not sure, I think that there are incentives to do as little as possible without anyone noticing (like at work, pretty much), but then if I was genuinely interested in the project, maybe I'd want to do as much as possible. I've been in those kinds of situations before related to writing or something similarly creative and it's definitely been important for me to get my voice/opinions in.

Feel free to open up the discussion even further if you want, those questions are just meant as a starting point.

[pi]

In relation to VCE, not uni.

1. Would you study as hard as you do now if you weren't in direct competition with other students? Or, if you aren't in direct competition with other students (i.e. you aren't graded to a curve) would being in competition make a difference?

Coming from MHS, competition was the main driving force for the majority of my cohort. Personally, I didn't go into VCE to "beat others", but rather, to "not fall behind my friends and be the loser" (it may sound harsh, but that's what I was scared of and how I thought about it). So in essence, I wanted to do well, but I also wanted my mates to do well and when a couple of them didn't, I was actually genuinely sad for them on occasions.

If there wasn't such a competitive environment at school, I probably would have done a lot worse because that "driving force" wouldn't be there for my cohort. However, if the system was then something where a number was the resultant of the VCE years, my approach probably wouldn't have changed.

2. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded? i.e. just for personal satisfaction. What if you got to pick the curriculum and assessment schemes based on your interests?

Probably not. I had two goals for VCE that served as motivation: 99.15 ATAR ambition and the light at the end of a road as a uni student in medicine/actuary/chem-engineering. Without a numerical aim, I probably wouldn't how how I'm going.

But for me, the number was just a number. I never really thought of what the number symbolised, just that I'd like that number (ie. mainly focused on my own progress, and as aforementioned, to keep up with my mates to reach that goal).

As for picking a curriculum, I'd be pretty lost haha.

3. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded but, as a small group (say, less than 5 of you) you all committed to finishing a project you were all really interested in and even though there weren't any contracts or anything, you knew that other members of the group were relying on you to do your part?

I've always tried my best in all group tasks. It comes back to my sentiments in the first question, I don't want to be that "loser" who falls behind or fails my mates. I'd definitely study as hard.

[TrueTears]

I'm really curious about what others think on the following questions (I've just been randomly thinking about this subject recently)

1. Would you study as hard as you do now if you weren't in direct competition with other students? Or, if you aren't in direct competition with other students (i.e. you aren't graded to a curve) would being in competition make a difference?

2. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded? i.e. just for personal satisfaction. What if you got to pick the curriculum and assessment schemes based on your interests?

3. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded but, as a small group (say, less than 5 of you) you all committed to finishing a project you were all really interested in and even though there weren't any contracts or anything, you knew that other members of the group were relying on you to do your part?

I think these are hard question, For me personally, I'd work just as hard if I weren't in direct competition with other students, but I probably do need to be graded to some extent (maybe not a number necessarily, but I'd need some level of feedback). With the group thing - I'm not sure, I think that there are incentives to do as little as possible without anyone noticing (like at work, pretty much), but then if I was genuinely interested in the project, maybe I'd want to do as much as possible. I've been in those kinds of situations before related to writing or something similarly creative and it's definitely been important for me to get my voice/opinions in.

Feel free to open up the discussion even further if you want, those questions are just meant as a starting point.

Everyone differs, but these are my personal answers:

1. Competition provides no extra incentive to me to study hard, I would study just as hard if there was no competition or maybe even harder since when there is competition one tends to aim for higher marks rather than more knowledge thus limiting one's ability to truly study. I "study" simply because I am passionate about the things that I am learning, rather than studying for the sake of studying and beating others.

2. I actually feel that when subjects are graded it restricts and constrains me from reaching my full potential. The reasoning is simple, when exams are graded it gives a natural incentive to go for the HDs and high marks, however this doesn't necessarily test a person's knowledge. For example, I feel constrained by the limitations of the units I do because I have to study the material within the course and make sure I don't make mistakes for the questions that will appear on exams, thus one tends to focus on exams rather than truly "learning", but what I really want to do is just simply keep learning and forget about maximising marks, obviously I can't do that because the natural incentive of obtaining a high mark eludes me from spending too much time studying extra stuff. However, if one is passionate enough, one can definitely squeeze out time to study further simply because of their passion. Personally I attempt to do this but I feel that I would be able to learn much more if exams weren't graded.

3. I'm not too sure on what this question means but anyways, personally I don't like studying 'with' others; what I mean is, I certainly do love discussing certain topics of interest with others and learning from them but I don't like to rely on others for my studying - the best teacher is yourself.

[Special At Specialist]

Well, I don't study very hard at all actually... maths is the only subject I put effort in. But I'll pretend I do for the sake of this survey:

1. No. Competition does help, especially since I'm a very competitive person. I always strive to be better than the people around me just for bragging rights.

2. No. Like most things, I seek some sort of comparable award for my efforts (eg. I wouldn't farm gold on WoW if it was just for personal satisfaction. I would want to show my gold off to others and compare it to see who is richer).

3. No. As much as I should, I would very easily lose motivation if this was all I was working for. If it was a small group that was being graded, then yes, but if it was ungraded and I was unable to show off my success to others, then no.

I know it probably sounds like I have such a terrible attitude towards school, but I can't control it sometimes. I am either motivated to work hard or I'm not, and it's difficult for me to force motivation upon myself.

[Starlight]

I'm just going to give my uni perspective on this one.

1. My primary reason for doing study is because of my GPA. Obviously I want it as high as possible to have a greater chance in getting to postgraduate studies in the bSC. Competition is a factor in GPA I guess in that sense, you want it as high as possible.

2. As the other guys have said, aiming for high grades (e.g. H1s) is a reward for how hard you have studied.

3. I don't generally study in a group, I just lock myself in my room to do work lol

[WhoTookMyUsername]

1. no definitely, when i was at previous schools was aiming for 99 ATAR, now aiming for considerably higher
2. No way, i would probably die from playing dota for too long
3. Same as 2.

Personally i think the vast majority of people if they were being truthful with themselves would say no to each point,
If you're guaranteed a 99.95 ATAR, and 100 UMAT no matter how much study you do, i can't see how anyone would study the same amount.
Some people may still study quite hard for enjoyment and interest, but i think even these people wouldn't do as much study as they would otherwise (similar for 2 and 3)

[Jenny_2108]

I'm really curious about what others think on the following questions (I've just been randomly thinking about this subject recently)

1. Would you study as hard as you do now if you weren't in direct competition with other students? Or, if you aren't in direct competition with other students (i.e. you aren't graded to a curve) would being in competition make a difference?

2. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded? i.e. just for personal satisfaction. What if you got to pick the curriculum and assessment schemes based on your interests?

3. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded but, as a small group (say, less than 5 of you) you all committed to finishing a project you were all really interested in and even though there weren't any contracts or anything, you knew that other members of the group were relying on you to do your part?

I think these are hard question, For me personally, I'd work just as hard if I weren't in direct competition with other students, but I probably do need to be graded to some extent (maybe not a number necessarily, but I'd need some level of feedback). With the group thing - I'm not sure, I think that there are incentives to do as little as possible without anyone noticing (like at work, pretty much), but then if I was genuinely interested in the project, maybe I'd want to do as much as possible. I've been in those kinds of situations before related to writing or something similarly creative and it's definitely been important for me to get my voice/opinions in.

Feel free to open up the discussion even further if you want, those questions are just meant as a starting point.

1. Yep. I just study hard as I love the subjects I chose and enjoy studying. I dont wanna join in competition or compete with others too much because they are my friends, my classmates and I feel bad and guilty when they are sad as well especially they are my best friends. I think studying helps me to reach my destination, not to knock others down

2. Sometimes, I feel happy and have lots of fun when studying or discussing problems with my peers so grades are not my main purpose of going to school. They only partly evaluate our ability, not all so a person doesnt study well or doesnt get high score at school , it doesn mean he/she isnt as smart or excellent as others.

3. If its a project I'm interested in, I will try my best and put efforts because I LIKE it

[Eriny]

I think the mix of responses is really interesting. TT talked about a concern I've had that you kind of want to go beyond the assessable content of a course into areas that interest you but because it would take up so much time and energy, you kind of just deal with what you need to. It's interesting that a lot of students do have the attitude that they're in school/uni to get high marks (or do the bare minimum to pass) rather than to learn. But I have that attitude a bit as well - I get anxious about what's on the exam, and I don't want to have to 'needlessly learn' things that won't be assessed. I think that's horrible, but, well, there it is.

It's interesting also the different ways competition can help/hinder us, I think VegemitePi's point about how competing with others drags you up, because you want to stay with them. That's a good thing. But then, I think that helping each other out, learning in a group, not being so individualised or pitted against each other all the time would be helpful too (Jenny's answers in that regard are admirable).

[TrueTears]

I think the mix of responses is really interesting. TT talked about a concern I've had that you kind of want to go beyond the assessable content of a course into areas that interest you but because it would take up so much time and energy, you kind of just deal with what you need to. It's interesting that a lot of students do have the attitude that they're in school/uni to get high marks (or do the bare minimum to pass) rather than to learn. But I have that attitude a bit as well - I get anxious about what's on the exam, and I don't want to have to 'needlessly learn' things that won't be assessed. I think that's horrible, but, well, there it is.

Yup you hit the nail on the head, I'd think quite alot of top students also have this "problem", you get so focused on trying to predict and study for things that might be on exams rather than actually learn things.

[Stick]

I'm really curious about what others think on the following questions (I've just been randomly thinking about this subject recently)

1. Would you study as hard as you do now if you weren't in direct competition with other students? Or, if you aren't in direct competition with other students (i.e. you aren't graded to a curve) would being in competition make a difference?

I'm really happy with how I'm travelling in VCE so far - perhaps I would relax a little bit more if I was being marked on just my own work, rather than being compared to everyone else in the state, because I'd feel more in control. Competition can be a motivator at times, but for me it's seldom a positive influence.

2. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded? i.e. just for personal satisfaction. What if you got to pick the curriculum and assessment schemes based on your interests?

I probably wouldn't study as hard if I wasn't graded on my work. I've always been interested in my studies but I've taken a massive step up from my attitude in Year 10 to the attitude I intend to maintain over the next couple of years, because I'm going to need a pretty high ATAR to pursue what I want to do in tertiary studies. I think the current curriculum and assessment scheme is actually alright but one thing I would change is how SACs work. Instead of allowing schools to create their own SACs and then having them readjusted to exam scores, I'd have them written by VCAA and have all students sit them on the same day (like a mini exam). Again, this would make me personally feel more in control, rather than having my marks affected by exams and the results of the rest of the cohort. Nervous people, such as myself, tend to perform worse in exams compared to SACs and under the current system my results will suffer if I don't keep my cool.

3. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded but, as a small group (say, less than 5 of you) you all committed to finishing a project you were all really interested in and even though there weren't any contracts or anything, you knew that other members of the group were relying on you to do your part?

In that ideal situation, yes. However, my results doing group work thus far in my schooling have been less than positive. I often get paired up with people who just aren't interested in working and I either receive a poor mark or end up taking responsibility for an unreasonable amount of the task. Again, this is a matter of me feeling in control. I like to be responsible for my own work.

[slothpomba]

1. Would you study as hard as you do now if you weren't in direct competition with other students? Or, if you aren't in direct competition with other students (i.e. you aren't graded to a curve) would being in competition make a difference?

Right now i consider myself to not be in direct competition, if i do assignment a and exam b, my mark is essentially A+B, in theory, everyone could score, say 70, if they did exactly the same (uni's tend to be a bit more iffy about more than ~20% of people getting D's and HD's though). Maybe they mark you differently at ANU but i really haven't heard of many courses being on a curve as the rule rather than the exception.

Competition doesn't really matter to me, i don't think it would greatly effect most people (barring those with some need to feel validated by beating everyone or forming some kind of study pact with your mates *shrug*).

I think VCE is our best example of how this affects people. Indeed, some people kind of slack up a bit because of scaling or the magical belief poor sacs will be repaired by good exams.

2. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded? i.e. just for personal satisfaction. What if you got to pick the curriculum and assessment schemes based on your interests?

For me personally? Probably. I'm really horrible at meeting deadlines, i've handed in essays that have got graded ~90% about 10 days late. It's not because i spent 10 extra days doing it, indeed i did it the day or two before i handed it in, deadlines just suck (yeah i know real world deadlines yada yada). This has happened more than once actually..

I also think grading forces people to tailor their work towards a certain aim, to getting the marks opposed to other things.

I've read about the "Keller Plan" at the Monash Philosophy department and it does sound like a really great idea:

The assessment regime for units offered in flexible delivery mode will involve a series of tasks, each of which must be completed to a satisfactory standard before moving to the next. Students will have a right to attempt any task as often as they need to reach the required standard, as they might a driving test; and to some extent they will also determine the standard to be reached on each task, for they may nominate Credit level, or Distinction, rather than a minimum pass, as the standard they will achieve. In most cases, marking will be completed within two or three days of submission, so students will have very rapid feed-back on their progress.

http://arts.monash.edu.au/philosophy/ugrad/ocl/

3. Would you study as hard if you weren't graded but, as a small group (say, less than 5 of you) you all committed to finishing a project you were all really interested in and even though there weren't any contracts or anything, you knew that other members of the group were relying on you to do your part?

This is both a really good idea and a really bad idea. If i'm just doing the work for my own marks i dont feel that much zeal or attentiveness towards the task but if other people are relying on my marks and expecting me to show up on Tuesday with work, then, i'll do it. It would be terribly effective for someone like me. I'd say thats about 50-70% of students.

The problem is the other 30-50%. Those that literally do next to nothing because it is a group assignment. No joke, i spent a week preparing comprehensive notes and i read through about 20 studies on prions. I show up to my group meeting just to glue everything on the poster and one of the members was on the computer "editing up" his work. He was basically cutting and pasting stuff verbatim from journals. Didn't do one inch of work before then. I think half the reason is people realise others will cover them and they're dickheads, so, they take advantage of that.

A lot of the problems in my opinion result from how we view university and education as a society. We see this get to a (sometimes ugly) extreme in VCE and things like the UMAT, people studying insanely for a test thats not meant to be studied for. It's the worst case of teaching to the test. A lot of people seem to view university as a job factory surrounded by a prestige farm. That might of been true in the past but now we have oversupply of certain professionals like pharmacists. A lot of uni degrees won't net you much more than a skilled tradesman (and those guys dont usually need to take work with them or attend professional conferences or anything). If it's money and a stable career you want, being a tradie might be your thing. Uni should be viewed much more about learning (thats why we get people bashing arts degrees) in the way it used to be in past centuries or the way some of the ancients viewed learning.

For me, its more interest. I will work incredibly hard on something i love. I love philosophy and i don't even currently do any units of it at uni. I spend hours reading papers and things like that. I can spend hours on pharmacology and pour all my effort into it.  I don't even really need to think of it as work, it just happens. I do very well in these situations. If its something i dont like/not interested in/ "just have to do" (like methods!) i will crash and burn so hard it isn't funny. There isn't much middle ground either. It's either doing very well or close to fail (or sometimes failing too).

I think there's a lot more too it than groups and grading. The idea of a group getting everyone to work might be a good one though, same with the keller plan but i doubt if that could be applicable to all areas and an entire degree of units instead of a handful.

[Eriny]

The Keller Plan sounds really interesting, I've never heard of it before.

For me, I think there's a tension between interest and grades. I have at times chosen classes purely because their assessment scheme sounds better to me (I prefer essays over exams) and to spend hours on pointless memorisation just to do well. But, I've also been known to spend days in a row working on a project or reading things that just spark my attention, despite not being graded and not getting money; as well as taking classes that I know would really challenge me just because they sound interesting.

I like the idea of thinking of university as a purely academic/intellectual thing - learning for the sake of learning - not as something people just do because that's what one does in order to get a job. If you aren't interested in those subjects, you could just opt out and get professional training elsewhere. If you take away that link between going to uni and getting a job though, it does have interesting implications on public funding (similar to funding for the creative arts) which is, although it would still be a social good, it would be hard to see how that is tangibly so and it would be difficult to find an effective funding model without students simply having to fork out more themselves.