Injecting competition into online programming and Chinese- English translation classrooms.

ABSTRACT

The introduction of competition has the potential to enhance the efficacy of students' learning performance. Nevertheless, there have been contradictory findings about the impact of intergroup competition on students' learning performance and engagement. Therefore, further comprehensive investigations for this problem are necessary. In order to bridge this gap, the present study seeks to ascertain the efficacy of intergroup competition in relation to students' academic performance and motivation. Consequently, we present the concept of intergroup competition and implement it within the context of an online programming course and an online Chinese-English translation course. The participants of this study consist of sophomore students majoring in Computer Science and English. Initially, a total of 108 sophomore students majoring in Computer Science participated. Then, a total of 100 sophomore students majoring in English participated. A quasi-experimental study was subsequently undertaken to compare students from two courses, which are online programming and Chinese-English translation, assigning them to an experimental group and a comparison group, respectively. Then, we conducted independent samples t-tests to measure the difference between the academic performance of the two group of students from two courses. The results indicate that both groups of students who were exposed to the intergroup competition mechanism demonstrated considerably higher levels of academic performance and engagement compared to the other group of students. The findings indicate that the competition mechanism, has the potential to be a beneficial instrument for enhancing both students' learning performance and motivation.