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Educational Research

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Conditions for collaborative learning and constructive competition in school

Pia Williamsa; Sonja Sheridana a Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Gteborg, Sweden Online publication date: 03 November 2010

To cite this Article Williams, Pia and Sheridan, Sonja(2010) 'Conditions for collaborative learning and constructive

competition in school', Educational Research, 52: 4, 335 350 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00131881.2010.524748 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2010.524748

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Educational Research Vol. 52, No. 4, December 2010, 335350

Conditions for collaborative learning and constructive competition in school

Pia Williams* and Sonja Sheridan
Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Goteborg, Sweden (Received 9 June 2009; nal version received 3 September 2010) Background: Teacher-organised group work, in which pupils work together in groups or pairs, is one of many learning situations pupils may encounter at school. Research (Williams, P. and Sheridan, S., Collaboration as one aspect of quality: a perspective of collaboration and pedagogical quality in educational settings. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 50, no. 1: 8993, 2006) shows that even though pupils are aware of the benets that working in groups can generate, they tend to avoid structured group work at school. Purpose: The aim of this study is to gain knowledge about necessary conditions for collaborative learning and constructive competition to develop among pupils at school. What conditions are necessary for collaboration and constructive competition to develop in learning situations among pupils at school? Sample: The study was carried out in Sweden and involved a total of 66 children, 618 years of age, and 25 teachers. Both sexes were equally represented among the pupils. The participating schools and teachers were selected by means of a stratied sample involving dierent geographical and socioeconomic areas and dierent educational programmes. Twelve children were selected from each of school grades 1, 5 and 9, whilst a total of 30 students were selected from ve dierent upper secondary school programmes. Design and methods: To study the conditions under which constructive competition could develop in school, the methodology used involved individual interviews. The analysis was qualitative and focused on the phenomenon of constructive competition and situations in which pupils and teachers compete. The process of analysis was interplay between empirical data and interactionistic theory, an analytical process of abduction, which consists of interpreting data and devising a theory to explain them. The intentions were to highlight perspectives of constructive competition in a variety of ways. The analyses converge, as well as generating information and knowledge about how pupils and teachers understand constructive competition. Conclusions: Several factors emerged as important for collaboration and constructive competition to develop among pupils in school. These were categorised into three conditions: attitudes, organisation and the meaning of learning. Competition between pupils and teachers does occur in school but it is not often explicitly articulated. The ways in which competition develops, either in destructive or constructive directions, becomes more a question of chance or coincidence than as evolving out of a conscious choice. To compete constructively in a conscious manner requires knowledge of how to be able to control the situation in a positive manner, about the characteristics of this kind of competition and of how that is to say under what kind of conditions it will
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*Corresponding author. Email: pia.williams@ped.gu.se

ISSN 0013-1881 print/ISSN 1469-5847 online 2010 NFER DOI: 10.1080/00131881.2010.524748 http://www.informaworld.com

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develop constructively between people in school contexts. Content and conditions are thus seen as inseparable in the development of constructive competition. Keywords: competition; collaboration; conditions; school; pupils; learning

Introduction In a previous article (Williams and Sheridan 2006), organised group work between pupils was challenged both as a means of learning and as an essential aspect of pedagogical quality in Swedish schools. The article presented the pupils perspectives on the ways in which education is organised and experienced and their views on knowledge and what they regard as valuable content in learning situations. The voices of pupils were then related to ways in which collaboration between pupils is dened, described and discussed in both research and practice. The results show that teacher organised group work is one of many working forms pupils encounter in school. However, they also indicate that, even though pupils are aware of the benets that working in pairs or groups can generate both individually and collectively, they nevertheless tend to avoid structured group work in school. These results thus invoke questions as to what might be reasons for pupils to avoid organised group work initiated by the teacher in school. For this, there could be many reasons. One assumption underlying this article is that teacher organised group work, here dened as a collective and structured group activity, might or might not lead to collaboration and shared learning (Rogo 1990). Collaboration is here dened as a situation in which particular forms of interaction among people are expected to occur, which would trigger learning mechanisms, but there is no guarantee that the expected interactions will actually occur (Dillenbourg 1999, 5). According to Siraj-Blatchford (2007), collaboration is a part of sustained shared thinking that involves complementary skills interacting to foster creativity, communication and shared understandings between pupils. Another assumption is that collaboration intertwined with constructive competition contributes to, and can be a driving force in, pupils learning (Fu p 2002; Sheridan and Williams 2006; lo Williams and Sheridan 2006). But, for collaboration and constructive competition to develop among pupils in school, specic conditions are required. Knowledge about what conditions are necessary for these phenomena to develop among pupils in learning situations is, however, rather limited. The aim of this article is to gain knowledge about necessary conditions for collaborative learning and constructive competition to develop among pupils in school. Specically, the research question that we address is: what conditions are necessary for collaboration and constructive competition to develop in learning situations among pupils in school? Collaboration and competition Competition with one another seems to be a complex human characteristic that nds expression in a variety of ways and can be found in a more or less hidden form in every human group (Fu p 2004). Some researchers believe that life has become an lo endless series of competitions. From the cradle to the grave, people are engaged in competition to outshine each other at work, in educational settings, during leisure time and in the home (Kohn 1986). Other researchers think that collaboration with others, rather than competition, is an essential element of human culture and a

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means of forming communities of learners (Bruner 1996; Deutsch 2000; Kutnick 1990; Johnson and Johnson 1989, 1994). On a parallel basis, dominant societal discourses demand that individuals make their own decisions from a democratic perspective (EU 1996). The ability to form relations with others, to consider and respect their perspectives and interests and, simultaneously, to accentuate ones potential as an individual in terms of intentions and rights that involve collaboration and competition, have been described as both juxtapositions and contradictions (Johnson and Johnson 1994; Kohn 1986). Research has shown that collaboration may contribute to childrens understandings of justice, development of self-esteem, willingness to share and care, ability to handle symbolic thinking, development of communicative skills and engagement in creativity (Damon 1984; Damon and Phelps 1989; Williams 2008). Furthermore, in addition to the enhancement of capacities for critical thinking, collaboration has also been shown to motivate children to learn new skills. The sharing of a common interest seems to be one of the fundamental dimensions of collaboration, contributing to the development of the skills described above (Damon and Phelps 1989; Dillenbourg et al. 1996; Mercer 2005; Mercer and Littleton 2007). Teamwork and collaboration are seen as healthy forms of interaction in which pupils are motivated to learn (Williams 2001). Competition, on the other hand, is often related to individualistic ambitions and is seen as a destructive force that should be eliminated from all kinds of learning environments for children and adolescents (Johnson and Johnson 1989, 1994; Kohn 1986). Competition is dened as destructive if it forces pupils to compete against each other in a way that hinders each others performance and creates ill feelings, undermines condence and encourages someone to strive for success at others expense (Kohn 1986; Slavin 1990). Slavin argues that competitive situations in school can be especially devastating for pupils who are low achievers as negative feedback and the experience of being at the bottom of the class are poor motivators. Even if competition and collaboration are often conceptualised as two extremes or polar opposites, recent research indicates that these phenomena should not be viewed as mutually inconsistent (Fu p 2001). Instead, collaboration and competi lo tion should be considered partners, not rivals (Carnevale and Probst 1997; Fu p lo 2004). According to Fu p (2002), collaboration and competition exist simulta lo neously as parallel motivations and behaviours. This means that a child can be strongly competitive whilst, at the same time, also being exceptionally good at collaboration, meaning that that these two abilities can be present simultaneously. The tendency to compete and collaborate is not only present in the same individual, but occurs on a group level in most activities. For example, if it is in the interest of the members of the group to carry out a group task in a successful way that involves collaboration, then this is what will happen; they collaborate. However, whilst so engaged they can very well compete for the role of the best collaborator or best contributor (Fu p 2002). Good friendship also includes competition, and lo whilst the goal of developing constructive competition is task-oriented, the view of the competitor is peer-oriented (Tassi and Schneider 1997). Fu p (2002) believes lo that, in short-term group tasks, everybody cooperates, but that, in real life, much more complicated learning situations arise. In educational settings, there are numerous situations where competition is an open process, meaning that all competitive parties are able to increase their gains in an innite way.

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Constructive competition Constructive competition is dened by Fu p (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004) as a lo social and cultural phenomenon that enhances childrens abilities, develops their ambitions and encourages their learning. Constructive competition is in this article also dened as a multidimensional educational phenomenon that motivates people in learning situations to stretch beyond their own expected abilities (Sheridan and Williams 2006; Williams and Sheridan 2006). To compete constructively in learning situations involves developing individual goals as well as sharing those of others. This is possible when knowledge is seen as an unlimited resource for making sense of the world around us. As knowledge is not limited, constructive competition is thus allowed to develop in the sense that one individuals learning in a particular area does not prohibit other people learning in the same area too (Sheridan and Williams 2006; Williams and Sheridan 2006). Fu p argues that, if we are to conceive preschool and school as lo places where children increase their knowledge about the world and themselves, then school is the very place where competition is essential for an innite good, namely knowledge (Fu p 2002, 5). lo Despite considerable research on both collaboration and competition, little is known about conditions for constructive competitive patterns that can develop among pupils in school, or how such phenomena can aect pupils social interaction and learning. One explanation for this could be that competition has persistently been compared with collaboration and so has remained a one-dimensional concept in the research literature. Therefore, it has been dicult to reveal the conditions under which competition can be benecial and constructive (Fu p 2004). lo Fu p (2001) believes that in order to gain knowledge about competition, the lo properties of competition should be examined. In setting out criteria for constructive competition, she includes resources, a long- or short-term perspective, morals, intensity, experience of accomplishment or loss, the focus of the competitive process, the experience of the other, explicit criteria for evaluation, vertical and horizontal processes, gender dierences and the function of competition (Fu p 2004). In lo comparison with collaborative people, competitive people are, she argues, exible in their thinking and are highly collaborative with members of their own group whenever the focus of competition is another out-group. In these studies, competitive people, unlike their collaborative counterparts, appear to have the ability to adjust their thinking to the social context (Carnevale and Probst 1997). This explains why some researchers state that competitive people foster intra-group collaboration during inter-group competition (Fu p 2002). lo Motivation to learn is one of the preconditions for accomplishing certain goals and enabling children to acquire knowledge (Giota 2001). According to Fu p lo (2002), competition is a kind of motivation that can be a signicant driving force in learning. Her research shows that the arenas for competition in school are broad in scope and include intellectual ability, achievement, artistic skills, physical skills, the teachers attention, love or respect, peer acceptance or popularity, and leadership and dominance. Our research also builds on Fu ps studies of constructive competition in that lo we are concerned with situations in which children collaborate, motivate each other, learn from each other, are involved in collaborative learning, imitate one another and are involved in constructive competition.

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The theoretical approach is based on an interactionistic perspective in which individuals and the environment inuence, and are inuenced by, each other in a con-tinuous interaction (Bronfenbrenner 1979, 1986; Bruner 1996). In this perspective, it is through interaction that people acquire ways of thinking, speaking and executing actions (Sa ljo 2000). The knowledge of people and institutions is constituted and maintained through interaction in specic cultural contexts (Evaldsson et al. 2001; Rogo 2003). From this interactive perspective, competitive situations depend not only on how the learning environment as a whole is constituted to meet, extend and challenge the experience and intentions of children to compete constructively, but also on how the child can inuence and form the environment in order to compete, collaborate and/or work individually. In other words, dierent interacting aspects, such as the organisation of the school environment, the attitude and norms towards competition, the reward structure, the teachers approach and competence, folk theory about competition (Bruner 1996), available resources, and the particular society and culture in which the education takes place, all inuence the occurrence of competition, collaboration and individual activities in educational settings and the forms which these may take. From this perspective, collaboration and constructive competition are to be seen as intertwined dimensions of the same phenomenon (Sheridan and Williams 2006). Method In Sweden, children start compulsory school at the age of seven and nish at 16 years of age. Upper secondary school involves a three-year education programme. The school system is goal-based. The overall national goals for the dierent school types (preschool, compulsory and upper secondary school) are linked to one another, have been enacted by the Swedish Parliament and are set out by the government. Collaboration in dierent forms is emphasised in the curricula and involves collaboration between pupils and teachers. Collaboration is highlighted as a primary condition for learning. The grades assigned at the compulsory and upper secondary levels are criteria-based and non-relative. This means that each individual can endeavour to achieve the grade on which they have set their sights. Thus, in this sense, the grading system does not involve any sense of a competition between pupils to achieve a specic grade. The grades that can be assigned are, respectively, Fail, Pass, Pass with distinction and Pass with special distinction. The study involved a total of 66 children, aged 618 years of age, and 25 teachers. Both sexes were equally represented among the pupils. There were more female teachers than male ones in the preschool and compulsory schools (younger children) and more male than female working with the upper secondary pupils. The participating schools and teachers were selected by means of a stratied sample involving dierent geographical and socioeconomic areas and dierent educational programmes. Twelve children were selected from each of school grades 1, 5 and 9, whilst a total of 30 students were selected from ve dierent upper secondary school programmes. The teachers were asked to select pupils who were willing to participate in the study, on the basis of achieving a representative group in terms of both sex and levels of grade attainment.

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Ethical aspects of the research were also taken into consideration, and anonymity was guaranteed to all participants. The parents of the interviewed children consented to the research project, and both teachers and pupils participated in the study on a voluntary basis. In order to study the conditions under which constructive competition could develop at school, the methodology chosen was individual interviews. All of the interviews, which were semi-structured, were conducted in Swedish. They were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Each interview lasted from between 20 to 60 minutes. The interviews In order to study how constructive competition is constituted in dierent educational settings, and how children, adolescents and teachers feel, communicate and act in competitive situations, the methodological choice was individual interviews, combined with critical incidents and the use of photographic vignettes. The photographic vignettes were only used with the younger schoolchildren. All of the interviews, which were semi-structured and conducted during one day at each preschool and school, were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Each interview lasted between 20 and 60 minutes. The main focus during the interviews was on the following areas: (1) factors that motivate/encourage and challenge children, adolescents and teachers in learning situations; (2) competition in preschool, school and upper secondary school; (3) constructive competition as a pedagogical/educational phenomenon; (4) learning in relation to constructive competition; and (5) aspects and conditions that are important for constructive competition to develop in learning contexts. Some of the interview questions were based on critical incidents, which were presented to the younger schoolchildren by means of four illustrative photos. The situations illustrated in the photographic vignettes and the critical incidents accompanying the photographs were chosen with the objective of describing various competitive situations, namely: (1) Structured competition In the photo, a boy and a girl are running alongside each other in a running competition. The boy is just ahead of the girl and both are about to reach the nishing line. The critical incident highlighted was: Anna and Carl are best friends and they participate in a running competition. Carl is running a bit faster than Anna and is soon reaching the nishing line. However, Anna is closing in on him and might reach the nishing line ahead of him or at the same time. Tell me what Anna is thinking and what Carl is thinking. (2) Non-structured social comparison competition In the photo, two boys are building towers of wooden blocks. One boy has succeeded in building a high tower, whilst the other boys tower keeps falling down. The children were asked, tell me how you think that both of the children in the photo should act, and how would you act in a similar situation? (3) Social competition A teacher is stretching her arms out towards a toddler who is walking towards her. Two other children are simultaneously reaching out to the teachers knee. The children were told that the teacher is reading a fairy tale. Tina and Luke are both walking towards the teacher to sit on her

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knee, but only one of them can sit on her knee. Tell me how you think that the children should act? Tell me how you think that the teacher should act? (4) Competition in competence Two girls and two boys are in the photo sitting in front of a computer. One of the girls and one of the boys is pointing at the screen. The children were told that they were playing a computer game, which only one of them could win. One of the girls has played the game before and was very good at it. One of the boys had no knowledge of how to play the game. What do you think that the girl who knows the game should do? What do you think the boy who does not know the game should do? Tell me. The reason for using these photos in connection with the critical incidents was to understand how the participants communicated about competition, as well as to highlight what, for them, appears as important in a competitive situation. When possible we used boys and girls names in the critical incidents to match the sexes of the interviewed children, adolescents and teachers. The older schoolchildren, adolescents and the teachers were presented with two critical incidents at the end of the interview. The following example illustrates a critical incident given to them: The school announce a competition and the winner can go to Disneyland/London. The aim of the competition is to present, in picture and text, a creative and constructive proposal of how to change the schoolyard. Anna/Peter is creative and often has new ideas, while Tina/Carl is good at writing and illustrating ideas by both hand drawings and computers images. They are good friends and both of them want to go to Disneyland/London, but only one of them can win. How do you think they should act to improve their chances to win and how would you act in a similar situation? How would you act as a teacher to improve both of their chances to win and give them a chance to develop their abilities? The analysis of the data The analysis is based on an attempt to describe how pupils and teachers compete constructively and how they verbally express and conceive of competition in dierent situations. The analysis is qualitative and focuses on the phenomenon of constructive competition and situations in which pupils and teachers compete. In order to gain a grasp of the totality of the data, all the material was read and studied repeatedly. In the rst phase of the analysis, the material was studied in its entirety, meaning that no account was taken of the type of interview or the age of participants. In the second phase, in order to discern similarities and dierences, we focused on the data for each specic group separately. Thereafter, in a nal stage, the data were once again analysed as a whole. In our analyses, we related the results both to theories of learning, collaboration and competition, and to the context of school. The process of analysis can therefore be described as interplay between empirical data and interactionistic theory, or as an analytical process of abduction (Alvesson and Sko ldberg 1994; Patel and Davidsson 2003; Peirce 1931, 1935). An analytical process of abduction consists of interpreting data and devising a theory to explain them. It is a metaphorical process that connects old meanings to new, and new to old, as an approach towards achieving idea generation. The analytical process within which an

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increased knowledge of regularities and variations was gained oscillated between the whole, the part and back to the whole again, where the point of departure was the whole. Throughout this process the focus was on the participants verbal expressions of how, why and when they compete and their feelings about competition and the competitive process. In particular, the analyses focused on the interviewees expressions of the necessary conditions for competition to develop in schools. The aspects considered were attitudes towards competition, dierent working forms, motivational and learning aspects, the experience of the other as an opponent/rival or a competitor/challenger, rules, norms and values in relation to competition. The intentions were to highlight perspectives of constructive competition in as many ways as possible and, at the same time, to ensure validity and reliability through clarity and transparency (Kvale 1997). The analyses converge, as well as generating information and knowledge from dierent perspectives and sources about how pupils and teachers understand constructive competition. In some respects, the results lend themselves to generalisation to the degree that they conrm the results of previous studies (Fu p 1999, 2002). lo Results The results of this study show that three main conditions for constructive competition to develop between pupils and teachers in school can be broadly described as: (1) attitudes; (2) organisation of the learning environment; and (3) an understanding of the meaning of learning. Conditions for constructive competition to ourish in school are that pupils (and teachers) become aware of their competences and have the ability to share their knowledge and understand the meaning of learning. They also need to develop an attitude that regards collaboration and competition as tools for learning in a longterm perspective rather than focusing on specic competitive situations. Furthermore, it is necessary that pupils and teachers are given the opportunity to collaborate and compete in a learning environment that has an open and permissive climate, uses dierent learning situations and in which the teacher focuses the attention not only on individual competence, but also on the collective knowledge of the group. The summary of these results will be discussed below. The excerpts from the interviews given below are translations from Swedish. Attitudinal conditions In school, teachers and pupils attitudes towards competition inuence the dierent conditions in which constructive competition can develop. We take attitudes here to include values, knowledge, emotions, and ways of acting in accordance with peoples understandings of collaboration and competition (Sheridan and Williams 2006). In the present study, the results reveal that teachers understand competition among pupils in learning contexts as a phenomenon that has mainly negative connotations. They associate competition with power, where people compete against each other in order to hinder the others performance. Such processes of competition are often characterised by pressure and stress. Teachers also believe that comparisons can cause individual pupils to underestimate their abilities. When the

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teachers provide examples of competition they are often in terms of descriptions of how it occur in destructive acts and situations:
Interviewer: If I say competition, what do you associate it with? Julia: Yes, / . . . / then I think like, push each other and . . . put down or look up to something, in some way and something like that, so it has . . . and thats the sort of thing that we talk about in the classroom or when discussing things at conferences and so on . . . performance anxiety, can it be that we compare ourselves with others and that this will be negative, and that there will be too much pressure on children and so on. (Teacher, year 4/5)

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Although teachers attitudes to competition are mostly negative, they can nevertheless see situations where pupils compete constructively in school. Whilst they can understand that competition can motivate pupils, as a phenomenon they feel that it makes pupils perform at a pace where pressure is placed upon them. The teachers are afraid of its destructive consequences, which, they believe, make pupils focus more on the contest than on the task. One interpretation is that teachers attitudes towards competition as destructive might, for example, hinder them in creating a learning environment in which constructive forms of competition can be developed between pupils. The pupils in this study argue that their teachers lack knowledge about constructive competition as a phenomenon that exists in school. Nevertheless, by creating learning situations such as collaborative teamwork, the teachers provide opportunities for constructive competition to develop between the pupils. However, even in these collaborative situations, the pupils express the view that teachers abandon them, since it is often perceived as being up to the pupils themselves to make the teamwork eective. The pupils express the view that they lack collaborative competences and would welcome teachers instructing them how to cooperate constructively:
Interviewer: Paula: Tell me about collaboration and competition in school. / . . . / we have been working a lot in collaboration and this has led to that we have learned how to work together, how to involve everybody in the group, but I think we have learnt this pretty much ourselves . . . we havent had any real . . . explanations or so forth, someone who told us . . . well maybe they have but, I dont know . . . No I mean, if it had been like that, that they had taught us about how to collaborate and told us what to think about and do that and that, then I think more would have been . . . for now, it is pretty much that everybody isnt . . . or if you think so, you come in a group and so . . . someone thinks that, yeah, this is good, now I can take it easy for four weeks and my friends will do the work, and maybe well get the highest grade . . . its pretty much like that. (Pupil, year 9)

Ability to collaborate is highly prioritised in education and encouraged by teachers (Cohen 1994; Dillenbourg et al. 1996; Johnson and Johnson 1989, 1994; Slavin 1990). However, in the present study, the pupils express the view that it is up to them to develop these competences. The results indicate that competences to collaborate with, encourage and spur each other on are both the criteria and the conditions for constructive competition to develop between pupils, and, as a consequence, need to be taught in schools. When teacher-support is lacking, the composition of, and competences within, a group become critical for patterns of constructive interaction to develop.

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Organisational conditions The organisation of the learning environment includes aspects relating to the social climate and the physical and social conditions that inuence the ways in which dierent work-forms and relationships between people can develop. An open and permissive climate An open and permissive climate seems to be one crucial condition for constructive competition to evolve. In such a climate, pupils have positive mutual expectations of one another and want the best for their friends. Mutual expectations created by the group are signicant motivational aspects for pupils (Giota 2010). The results of this study show that a learning climate formed by such expectations is of importance in determining the amount of time, eort and commitment pupils want to devote to interaction and learning in school. In this climate, pupils are encouraged and encourage each other to contribute both to individual and collective work in the best way that, as individuals, they can. Expectations such as these can be evidenced on several levels including at the individual, group and institutional/school levels:
Interviewer: Chassie: Do you develop competences by being spurred on by someone? It would be that . . . ah, when we came to school, when I arrived at school then, my school year had already nished, then the head told us the rst day you are our citys future elite and if you are welcomed in such a way, of course it spurs you on. (Pupil, upper secondary school)

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The nature of this climate can be described as a combination of pupils spurring each other on to perform better, as well as supporting and helping one another in periods of diculty:
Joanna: Ah, I think it is everybody, or so . . . because if things get a bit dicult or so, you say come on, lets get on with it or something like that Interviewer: Do they say that, do you say that to each other? Joanna: Yes, something like that. Yes, but not so often or . . . I dont know if it is someone special or so. Yes, if we were working together and everybody sits down and does something else so, ah, I would, then it would probably go quite slowly Interviewer: Do you get spurred on by seeing other people work? Joanna: Yes, you could say that. (Pupil, year 4/5)

In the excerpt above, Joanna emphasises the importance of a relaxed climate in which there is mutual encouragement to do well. In a climate where pupils spur each other on and motivate one another, collaboration and constructive competition can also develop. Pupils individual work The ways in which the classroom, the teaching and the learning environment are organised by the teacher are important in creating conditions in which constructive competition can develop among pupils. Our results show that a substantial part of classroom work is carried out on an individual basis. The pupils state that, even if they are all working with individual tasks, parallel with each other, they nevertheless

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collaborate, compete and help one another. Indeed, they state that it is this type of peer-collaboration that, to a large extent, motivates them to want to learn and to put in a greater eort in their own schoolwork:
Interviewer: Ninni: Do you have anyone who makes you challenge yourself, someone who spurs you on? Yes, its like if I sit with, like, just one friend, and you sit like . . . you sit like this beside one another and one of you reads out the numbers, its a bit like, you feel like its worth putting eort into. So if youve got into it, its like this and this and this and then this and then that, like, then you cant talk or anything, well, then it feels like Im exerting myself a little more than I normally would. (Pupil, grade 4/5)

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For the pupils, it is natural to help one another in dierent learning situations. Maybe it is a question of knowing and counting on the fact that you yourself will be helped and supported in situations in the future. In close and friendly relationships, pupils compete and become motivated and eager to exert themselves to do their best:
Interviewer: No . . . but if you think of a situation like that, you and Johanna are doing sums together and she says now Im there, and you are there too, then what happens with you and your learning process? . . . Well. It would be like that I . . . I just increase my pace and try to get ahead of her. Mm. And then she would do the same thing with me, and so it goes on. Yes. But it is good in some ways because . . . otherwise if we were on the same sum, then we would just sit and talk and we wont proceed, but if she is a little bit ahead of me I think that I have to get ahead of her, and then she thinks that about me too, and so we just get further and further. Mm. So, occasionally we help each other like this, or when I am behind her I tell her that I dont understand and then I dont want to wait for the teachers help because he is helping the others, so instead she will help me. Mm, so that will make you increase your pace then? Yes. (Pupil, year 9)

Shana: Interviewer: Shana: Interviewer: Shana:

Interviewer: Shana:

Interviewer: Shana:

It is in such contexts that constructive competition seems to take form and develop. The prerequisites involved in the creation of such climates are the concurrent existence of respect, togetherness and friendship. When constructive competition is established between pupils, they seem to encourage each other to perform better, both on an individual basis, and compared with their competitors but, at the same time, without damaging the self-condence of any individual member. Pupils collaborative and competing work Among the basic conditions for collaboration are opportunities for mutual communication and knowledge-sharing among pupils and between the teacher and the pupils (Dillenbourg 1999; Kutnick 1990). Opportunities to collaborate are also crucial aspects in constructive competition (Sheridan and Williams 2006). When organising teamwork, the teacher needs to have a preconception of the aims of the

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teamwork, in relation to the actual task and the more general learning objectives, as well as the relations between group members (Damon and Phelps 1989; Williams, Sheridan and Pramling Samuelsson 2001). This requires, among other things, a particular knowledge and/or experience about dierent forms of collaboration and group processes since relations within groups can develop in a range of dierent ways. The results suggest that competition develops in the main between pupils who perceive themselves as equals, irrespective of the position they have in their class. In order to position themselves, the pupils need to have knowledge both of their own expertise in relation to others, and also about the learning expectations in any specic area. The goal of competition for the pupil is thus to be as good as, or indeed better, within the specic eld of knowledge, skills and/or social competences, than others in the peer group. Research show that in unequal groups members can collaborate but individual members can dominate group processes, something that has the potential to be both constructive and destructive (Kutnick 1990; Williams and Sheridan 2006). The results from this study show that equality among group members is, as opposed to inequality, a stronger motivational force for constructive competition to develop among members. Equality is here dened as having respect for each others knowledge, opinions and ways of acting. Furthermore, it is important that competitors experience that they are at the same level of knowledge, and that each of them has something unique to contribute to the shared situation. In this way, dierent approaches and understandings contribute to knowledge formation:
Britt: And when they have to do pair-work, then they sit down and do the same task, to try and nd, what we could call a maths-story, they can get two numbers to equal ve, plus two, and create a maths-story based on that, and then they have to elaborate and present the text in this way. Mmm, and the competition, how does that come in? Hm, that it is, that often there is one who takes the lead a little and the other is encouraged to come up with their own ideas and own solutions, that they can spur each other on, when they sit and talk to one another, then I think . . . I think that if two children are pretty much at the same level, that its easier to attain. (Teacher, Grade 5, also see excerpt of Shana)

Interviewer: Britt:

Even if the teachers we interviewed were generally negative to competition, they are nevertheless aware of the eects of group dynamics and the importance of creating climates of constructive peer collaboration within which pupils can motivate one another. To understand the meaning of learning Long- as well as short-term learning goals are fundamental for the development of constructive competition (Fu p 2004). Fu p (2004) argues that it is, in particular, lo lo the long-term goals that prevent the pupils from getting caught up in the actual competitive situation and mean that they can see both the situation itself and their individual goals in a broader context. In this study, both teachers and pupils reveal that explicit goals for the future tend to motivate them to learn and to strive for higher levels of accomplishment in learning situations. They are aware of the fact that what they do today is of

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importance for goals to be achieved tomorrow. Long-term goals can vary between individuals and situations, and are often related to both the curricular aims and the individuals own learning interests. From a long-term perspective, it is a question of the fullment of future dreams. Teachers emphasise the importance of keeping abreast of and participating in the creation of knowledge within their own subject, and of being able to identify and communicate knowledge and values from various perspectives. They relate their arguments to what they conceive as the expectations and demands of society and the labour market, as well to the pupils needs and wishes. Many of these expectations concern competences children need in society today, as well as the society of the future:
Interviewer: What spurs you on in your work? Sune: In some sense in a broader perspective, its some sort of interaction, its very much a question of communication. At the moment Ive got Swedish, for example, which is clearly communicative, but all subjects are communicative. Now its about education, and learning is all about communication and social contexts . . . Interviewer: Umm Sune: And since society is developing extremely rapidly, we place enormous demands on ourselves as players in the bigger game. Interviewer: Umm Sune: And it is exciting and challenging, so to say, to try and understand whats happening, so to say, to try to develop in pace together with, you know, surrounding society. (Teacher, upper secondary)

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The results indicate that whilst the will to learn may well be the prerequisite for constructive competition, it also, simultaneously, motivates people to want to learn. In the interviews, the will to learn and the joy of knowing are closely related to future expectations and the achievement of higher grades. For most of the pupils in this study, these seem to be parallel and interacting motivational aspects, which encourage them to take further steps. In one of the excerpts, Amanda explains that you want to learn more, to get more experiences and to get further thus making it easier to get a place at university and such things, if you are up to it. The content of learning needs to be meaningful, as well as interesting, and needs to take place in challenging forms. The pupils describe how, in specic situations involving competition, they can experience a feeling of ow (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). In these situations, where the activity and learning comprise a whole, pupils become totally engaged and highly focused:
Martina: Nuh, Its nothing special. Its just that . . . nuh, sometimes Im like really, really slow in school, but other times, like today, I can feel that Ive really got a ow. So what is it that means that youve got a sense of ow today? I dont know . . . more alert, I think its more fun. Yes, now were doing landscapes and maths, and sometimes I hate maths and sometimes its the best subject in the world. So when is it good? When it goes smoothly without any hitches or suchlike. Then its fun. (Pupil, grade 4/5)

Interviewer: Martina:

Interviewer: Martina:

In our study, social competence in combination with cognitive knowledge is experienced as something that motivates both pupils and teachers. The people who we aspire to become are those who are knowledgeable in dierent areas such as, for

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example, in school-subjects, sports, fashion, music, nature, social relations etc. Those who want to share this knowledge with others can be regarded as humble, inclusive and act as good friends. Here knowledge and social competence support one another in combinations where, together with ethical dimensions, diversity is seen as a resource in learning contexts. Variations in ways of thinking, acting, teaching and learning are here experienced as motivational aspects. Conclusions The aim of this article is to gain knowledge about necessary conditions for collaborative learning and constructive competition to develop among pupils in school. In the analyses, several factors emerged as of importance for the development of constructive competition among pupils and teachers in school. These have been categorised into three main conditions namely, attitudes, organisation and the meaning of learning. The results demonstrate that constructive competition in dierent learning situations occur in school. However, it is not often explicitly articulated and, as such, may thus come about unconsciously as a tacit phenomenon. The ways in which competition develops, either in destructive or constructive directions, becomes, in school contexts, more a question of chance or coincidence than as evolving out of a conscious choice. Furthermore, it is a phenomenon that is seldom reected upon. To compete constructively in a conscious manner seem to require knowledge of how to be able to control the situation in a positive manner. This requires, in part, knowledge about the characteristics of this kind of competition and, in part, knowledge of how that is to say under what kind of conditions it will develop constructively between people in school contexts. Content and conditions are thus seen as inseparable in the development of constructive competition. In the Swedish education system today, grade achievement places a substantial responsibility on the individual pupil (Department of Education 1994). It is largely up to students themselves to decide how much eort they are prepared to expend and what grades they want to achieve. Teachers in this study argue that they see how pupils form groups that represent the pupils own ambitions, where they either invest in the quest to gain the highest marks, or are simply content to achieve passing grades. There is, thus, a paradox between the discourses of competition and collaboration. When studying situations in which pupils are engaged in learning activities, we found competition to be a multidimensional phenomenon containing dimensions of both constructive competition and collaboration, and, furthermore, that constructive competition is intertwined with dierent kinds of interaction patterns (Sheridan and Williams 2006; Sheridan and Williams 2010). Children and adolescents continuously, and successfully, integrate and combine individual work, collaboration and competition in one and the same learning activity. Our results can be related to Fu ps (2004) criteria for constructive competition but extend and deepen them. lo Several of these criteria are on an individual level, while this study also on a collective level highlights conditions for constructive competition to develop among pupils in school. This has become possible since constructive competition is seen here as an educational phenomenon as well as an aspect of Swedish culture, in that it is both part of the learning context of school, and a reection from a Swedish perspective of the dierent ages of the participants.

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School environments could provide all the necessary conditions for developing constructive competition among pupils. Nevertheless, constructive competition is a concept largely unknown in praxis. By being aware of the constructive aspects of competition, the teacher can include it in her/his pedagogical methods and be able to use it as a motivating force in school. This research, conducted close to practice, could be of interest to both the public at large and stakeholders within the educational system in that it generates a better understanding of what constructive competition implies and how it can develop. The results of the study might also be of substantial importance for teacher education and teaching practice as they challenge previously accepted ideas of competition, collaboration, motivation and comparisons between people. With this knowledge, teachers and educators may be able to create conditions for competing in a way that can enable pupils to grow as individuals, to develop their self-esteem and ambitions as well as wanting to participate in dierent types of group-work.
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