An experimental study on the effects of cooperation and competition in the game-based mobile language learning

Abstract. As gamification gains popularity, it is a trend to implement gamified social features in the mobile language learning field based on Social Interdependence Theory (SIT), because the social interaction can positively affect learners. However, a detailed examination of how gamified cooperation and competition affect language learning process and outcome remains an open subject. The current study was conducted among university students in China (N=75), and those students were randomly assigned either gamified cooperation or gamified competition setting. All students were asked to complete a daily task: learning 20 English words for 14 days with an app named Baicizhan. The study used a quantitative methodology and the data, related to task completion, learning achievement, social relatedness and intrinsic motivation, were collected to compare the difference. In current study, firstly it confirmed that the cooperation outperformed competition in terms of promoting social relatedness; secondly, it identified that competition outperformed cooperation in terms of learning achievement; thirdly, it revealed that there was no significant difference in terms of task completion and intrinsic motivation between two settings. In a short, our study demonstrates that constructive competition can be as effective as cooperation in terms of motivating learners to put efforts and invoking intrinsic motivation; moreover, constructive competition was even more effective than cooperation in promoting learning achievement. Therefore, the constructive competition should be encouraged and taken into consideration when applying the gamified social features to learning activities

The cooperative competitive citizen

Each human group and each society is a complex system of cooperative and competitive relationships. These two relations are intertwined, however, it is not indifferent in what way and to what extent. The present research has aimed at revealing the requirements of cooperative competition which is a competitive process with a high degree of cooperation among the competing parties. The Critical Incident Technique was applied. This procedure is based on the direct observation of human behaviour and was elaborated in order to examine complex interpersonal phenomena and to provide ecological validity. Altogether 483 critical incidents were described by teachers and university students of education. They were instructed to recall competitive relationships that have certain characteristics (e.g. high degree of cooperation among the parties vs no cooperation among the parties; high degree of trust among the parties vs high degree of distrust among the parties, etc.) After the free description of the incident, the participants had to characterize the competitive event along different dimensions on a Likert-scale, for instance intense/not intense competition; rules kept or violated. Applying principal component analysis, four different scales were constructed: the Cooperation Scale (i.e. the relationship among the competitors, cooperation, trust and communication), the Motivation Scale (i.e. motivation, the importance of the goal, development and learning), the Fairness Scale (i.e. rule keeping, no aggression and no manipulation) and the Enjoyment Scale (i.e. enjoyment and positive stress). The correlation analysis of the interrelations among the scales and individual variables has indicated that the high degree of cooperation among the competitors was positively related to fairness, the clarity of rules of competition, enjoyment and motivation. Less cooperation among the competitors was related to higher level stress and more intensive competition among them. If competitive processes are characterized by high degree of cooperation, i.e. they are cooperative competitions that have no detrimental but only beneficial effects, then they combine the constructive aspects of both cooperation and competition

What does it take to promote cooperative competitive citizenship in a community?

Each human group (a school class, a working team, a local community etc.) is a complex system of cooperative and competitive relationships. These two interpersonal relations are intertwined, however it is not indifferent in what way and to what degree. It is a goal of each group to be able to establish a balance between them that contributes to the most constructive functioning. | The goal of the present research was to identify those conditions and their interrelationship that may promote a beneficial combination of cooperation and competition i.e. cooperative competition. In addition we wanted to reveal how the potentials of cooperative competition may vary according to different life domains. In our study the Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954) was applied. This procedure is based on the direct observation of human behaviour. The respondent has to describe freely events, as much in detail as possible that meet certain criteria. The procedure was elaborated in order to examine complex interpersonal phenomena and to provide ecological validity. Altogether 431 stories were analyzed described by university students and primary and secondary school teachers. They were instructed to recall competitive relationships that have certain characteristics (e.g. high degree of cooperation among the parties – no cooperation among the parties; high degree of trust among the parties – high degree of distrust among the parties etc.). After the free description of the ‘story’ the participants had to answer specific questions to characterize the competitive event along different dimensions with a Likert-type scale, e.g. intense/not intense; kept the rules/violated the rules etc. Applying factor analysis four different scales were constructed: the Relationship scale (cooperation, trust, communication), the Motivation scale (motivation, the importance of the goal, development, learning), the Rule keeping scale (rule keeping, no aggression, no manipulation) and the Enjoyment scale (enjoyment, positive stress). A correlational analysis revealed how these different scales relate to each other. The critical incidents were also content analysed and categorized according to the life domain in which the competition took place. The interrelation of the different relationship and situational variables with the life domain was also examined in order to reveal if in different life domains there are different potentials to form cooperative competitive relationships