An Investigation of the Effect of Competition on the Way Students Engage in Game-Based Deliberate Practice

This paper reports the results of an experiment that used qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the effect of competition on students´ use of game-based deliberate practice. We hypothesized that the results of the experiment would show that competition has a positive effect on performance outcomes, but it also increases students´ tendency to game the system. The actual results of the experiment showed only very modest support for these hypotheses but have other implications for improving the design of educational games.