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Does classroom social comparison bias students’ evaluation of their own competence?

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Abstract

Overestimation and underestimation of students’ own competence result from social comparison in the classroom. There is some evidence that secondary school students compare their results with those of one or two same-sex others who perform slightly better than themselves. The first objective of this study was to replicate these findings among younger students (9–11 years old) in mathematics and language arts (French). The second objective was to consider the identification with the target as a moderator factor, because findings have been divergent regarding the positive or negative influence of social comparison on students’ academic self-evaluation. We expected firstly that absolute upward comparison to be beneficial for students’ self-evaluation bias of competence provided they identified with their upward target. Secondly, we expected their perception of their target’s competence (relative comparison) to contribute to students’ self-evaluation bias of competence and to be negatively related to it. The results indicated a tendency to compare upward and revealed that absolute upward comparison was positively related to the students’ self-evaluation bias of competence in mathematics and French. This relationship was stronger when the students identified with their upward target. In contrast, relative comparison was negatively related to their self-evaluation bias of competence in mathematics and French. To sum up, these results reveal the need to consider identification with the comparison target when studying the relationship between social comparison and academic self-evaluation and to consider relative and absolute comparison simultaneously in order to bring out the full contribution of social comparison in the classroom.

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Notes

  1. Identification and similarity are two close constructs. While identification occurs when individuals see their target’s position as their own future, similarity occurs when individuals perceive themselves as being similar to their comparison target.

  2. We first conducted stepwise analyses that confirmed there was no suppressive effects.

  3. As there was no significant effects of dimensional comparisons on self-evaluations in math and French, in our model we did not control for achievement in math when predicting self-evaluation in French or for achievement in French when predicting self-evaluation in mat.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been carried out within the framework of the ANR-2016 SCHOOLBIAS project supported by the French National Research Agency: ANR-16-CE28-0011.

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  1. Laboratoire de Recherche sur les Apprentissages en Contexte, Université Grenoble Alpes, Bureau C 217 Bâtiment Michel Dubois, 1251 Avenue Centrale, 38400, Saint-Martin-d’Hères, France

    Natacha Boissicat

  2. Laboratoire de Recherche sur les Apprentissages en Contexte, Université Grenoble Alpes, Bureau C 209 Bâtiment Michel Dubois, 1251 Avenue Centrale, 38400, Saint-Martin-d’Hères, France

    Pascal Pansu

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Quebec at Montreal, P.B. 8888, Station Centre-ville, Montreal, QC, H3C 3P8, Canada

    Thérèse Bouffard

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  1. Natacha Boissicat
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Boissicat, N., Pansu, P. & Bouffard, T. Does classroom social comparison bias students’ evaluation of their own competence?. Soc Psychol Educ 23, 1303–1326 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-020-09582-y

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