Elsevier

Computers & Education

Volume 78, September 2014, Pages 66-77
Computers & Education

Leaderboards in a virtual classroom: A test of stereotype threat and social comparison explanations for women's math performance

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.05.005Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Leaderboards in virtual classrooms evoke social comparisons in women.

  • Leaderboards can influence women's academic identification.

  • Leaderboards can influence academic performance (specifically, math scores).

  • In some cases, leaderboards can negatively influence academic performance.

Abstract

Gamification includes the use of gaming features, such as points or leaderboards, in non-gaming contexts, and is a frequently-discussed trend in education. One way of gamifying the classroom is to introduce leaderboards. Leaderboards allow students to see how they are performing relative to others in the same class. Little empirical research has investigated the impact of leaderboards on academic performance. In this study, 80 female undergraduates took a math test in a virtual representation of a classroom after being exposed to one of three leaderboard conditions: a leaderboard where men held the majority of the top positions, a leaderboard where women held the majority of top positions, and a no leaderboard condition. Participants in the female majority leaderboard condition performed more poorly on the math test than those in the male leaderboard condition, yet demonstrated a higher level of academic identification than those in the male and control conditions. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications that this study's findings may have for the use of leaderboards within educational environments.

Introduction

Gamification is the “use of game design elements in non-game contexts” (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011, n. p.), and many have discussed the benefits of gamifying the classroom (Connolly et al., 2012, Deterding et al., 2011, Kapp, 2012, Landers and Callan, 2011, Lee and Hammer, 2011, Muntean, 2011). Supporters of gamification claim that the use of game elements in the classroom enhances learning by increasing engagement and motivation and facilitating social learning (Muntean, 2011), and encourage teachers to integrate these methods into their classrooms (Jones, 2010, Kaya, 2010, Salter, 2011a, Salter, 2011b, Salter, 2011c). Emerging studies, however, suggest that gamifying learning may not always be beneficial (e.g., de-Marcos et al., 2014, Domínguez et al., 2013; for a review, see Hamari, Koivisto, & Sarsa, 2014).

One way of gamifying the classroom is to introduce leaderboards to the learning environment (Hamari et al., 2014). Leaderboards allow students to see how they are performing relative to others in the same class; some argue that the competitive environment this creates is beneficial to learning (Camilleri et al., 2011, Charsky, 2010, Kapp, 2012, Muntean, 2011). However, little empirical research has investigated the impact of leaderboards on academic performance or the consequences arising from leaderboard-prompted comparisons. Indeed, it is possible that the use of leaderboards within educational settings may create high levels of stereotype threat or detrimental upward social comparisons. Research has demonstrated that both stereotype threat (Nguyen and Ryan, 2008, Sekaquaptewa and Thompson, 2003, Spencer et al., 1999, Thompson and Sekaquaptewa, 2002) and upward social comparisons (Dijkstra et al., 2008, Lyubomirsky et al., 2003, Muller and Fayant, 2010) can have a detrimental influence on students' academic performance. This study aims to examine whether or not interaction with a leaderboard produces effects consistent with stereotype threat or social comparison experiences.

Section snippets

Gamification, education, and leaderboards

Gamification has become a commonly recommended pedagogical tool (Anderson and Rainie, 2012, Boulet, 2012, Chou, 2013, Kapp, 2012), and advice on how to implement it in the classroom regularly appears in The Chronicle of Higher Education, a publication geared toward post-secondary school instructors (e.g., Jones, 2010, Kaya, 2010, Salter, 2011a, Salter, 2011b, Salter, 2011c). At its heart, gamification focuses on the idea of taking some of the elements that make games engaging (e.g., direct

Stereotype threat

Stereotype threat is a phenomenon that occurs when “one can be judged by, treated in terms of, or self-fulfill negative stereotypes about one's group” (Spencer et al., 1999, p. 6). Being under stereotype threat tends to result in underperformance on the stereotyped domain (Spencer et al., 1999). Indeed, some research has found that the cause of this underperformance is that being under stereotype threat significantly decreases working memory capacity, which in turn negatively influences

The current study

The current study investigates the impact of leaderboards on academic performance within the context of women and math skills. This particular context was selected because the effect of stereotype threat on women's math performance has been well-documented (see Nguyen & Ryan, 2008) and the ease with which sex can be indicated using only first names. Indeed, even very young children (3–3½ year olds) can reliably associate male and female names with images of boys and girls (Bauer & Coyne, 1997).

Participants

Eighty women aged 18 to 41 (M = 20.06, SD = 2.76) were recruited from a student participant pool created from Communication courses at a large Midwestern university and received credit to participate in the study. Participants reported their race/ethnicity as: 83.8% Caucasian/European-American/White (n = 67); 7.5% Black/African/African-American (n = 6); 5% Asian/Asian-American (n = 4); 2.5% other (n = 2); and one participant did not respond.

Procedure

At least one week before the lab experiment,

Results

Means and standard deviations on the measures of interest for each group can be found in Table 1. Math identification at time 1, academic identification at time 1, and math level were all examined as possible covariates. Only significant covariates were retained for the analysis.

Conclusions and discussion

In this study, female participants entered a virtual representation of a classroom and were exposed to either a male-dominated leaderboard, a female-dominated leaderboard, or no leaderboard and then asked to complete a math quiz. The results of the study found that women in the female-dominated leaderboard condition performed worse on the math quiz than those in the male-dominated leaderboard condition. Despite their objectively poorer performance, women in the female-dominated leaderboard

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