What Are the Benefits of Inter-School Reading Competition?

A competition with other schools is easy to start and hard to judge. Pupils like a rival, staff like a reason to talk about reading, and parents like a result. But competition can also turn reading into a contest that weaker readers expect to lose. This article sets out the case for and against, as the research supports it. It covers what competition does to effort and interest, why team and school results are safer than individual rankings, and what tends to go wrong. Where the evidence is thin, it says so.

What are the benefits of competing with other schools?

The main benefit of an inter-school reading competition is a shared goal. Every pupil's reading adds to a school score, and the rival is another school, not a classmate. That can raise effort and make reading a daily topic. The risk is that competition helps some pupils and discourages others. Research on competition in general finds no reliable average effect on performance, so the design decides the result.

Three design choices tilt the balance towards benefit. Score the school, not the pupil. Match each school with rivals it can realistically beat. Keep the stakes low and the rounds short. The rest of this article explains why, and what to watch for.

One caution comes first. We found no controlled study of reading competitions between schools. The case below rests on research into competition, cooperation and rewards in other settings, applied by reasoning.

What does competition do to effort and interest?

Murayama and Elliot (2012) pooled the existing research in a meta-analysis. They found no noteworthy overall relation between competition and performance. A second meta-analysis and three new studies suggested why. Competition prompts some people to aim at outdoing others, and that goal helps performance. It prompts others to aim at not doing worse than others, and that goal harms it. On average, the two cancel out.

For a school, the question is which goal a competition invites. A pupil who thinks 'we could win this week' is aiming to outdo. A pupil who thinks 'I must not be the one who lets the school down' is aiming to avoid. The same contest can produce both, in the same class.

Interest is a second issue. Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999) analysed 128 experiments on rewards. Expected tangible rewards lowered later free-choice interest in the task. Positive feedback raised both free-choice behaviour and reported interest. Tangible rewards tended to be more harmful for children than for college students. A trophy promised to the winning school is an expected reward. The experiments did not test school competitions, but they point to small prizes and plenty of specific praise.

• Effort can rise when pupils believe their school can win, and when a poor week is soon behind them.
• Effort can fall when pupils expect to lose, or feel that they are being judged.
• Interest can fall when the prize, not the reading, becomes the reason to read.

Why are school-level results safer than individual rankings?

Tauer and Harackiewicz (2004) compared competition, cooperation and a mix of the two in four studies. In three of them, people shot basketballs. Pure competition and pure cooperation did not differ in enjoyment or performance. Competition between groups, with cooperation inside each group, consistently led to higher intrinsic motivation. In two of the three studies it also led to better performance.

A competition between schools is competition between groups, as long as the score is a team score. Johnson and Johnson (2009) describe positive interdependence: each person can reach the goal only if the others they are linked with reach it too. Their review draws on more than 1,200 studies, over eleven decades, of cooperative, competitive and individual effort. When every pupil's reading adds to the school score, stronger readers have a reason to bring weaker ones along.

The basketball studies used a sports task, not reading, so treat this as a direction rather than a proof. It does match the way most schools already run contests: houses, classes and teams, not lists of pupils.

A raw total rewards size. A school of 900 pupils will outscore a school of 200 even if its pupils read less. Score per pupil, or by the share of pupils who read this week, so that a small school can win.

What does a rival school add that a rival class does not?

Teachers who run contests between schools often point to three gains. These come from practice and reasoning, not from studies of reading competitions.

• A fresh rival. Inside one class, the same pupils tend to finish near the top every time. Against other schools, a whole class or school can move up or down from week to week.
• A shared identity. Pupils read for 'us'. A pupil who would not read for a personal score may read for the school.
• A stake for the middle. In a class ranking, a pupil in the middle rarely moves. In a school score, their finished story counts as much as the top reader's.

Garcia, Tor and Schiff (2013) offer a way to think about this. They reviewed research on social comparison, the habit of judging ourselves against others, as a source of competitive behaviour. Comparison and rivalry grow stronger when the rival is similar and when competitors stand near a standard, such as first place. The authors also name social category fault lines, rivalries that run between groups, as a factor. A rival school is a different group, which may sharpen the contest. That is an inference from a general model, not a tested finding about schools.

What can go wrong?

Most problems with inter-school competitions are predictable. The list below covers the common ones, with the research behind each where there is some.

• Stuck far from the top. Garcia, Tor and Schiff (2013) report that rivalry is stronger near a standard such as first place. A school that is twentieth of twenty-two, week after week, has little reason to push.
• Too many schools in one table. Garcia and Tor (2009) called this the N-effect. People trying to finish an easy quiz in the fastest 20% worked faster when they believed they faced 10 rivals rather than 100. A table of hundreds of schools may motivate less than a league of eight.
• Unequal levels. A school of A2 readers set against a school of B2 readers on the same texts will lose however hard it reads. See Fair Reading Competitions: Why Level Matching Matters.
• Blame inside the team. If the score is a raw total, pupils who read less can be made to feel they cost the school the win. Score participation as well as totals.
• A count nobody trusts. Self-reported pages and minutes are easy to inflate when the school is behind. Attach a light check to every point.
• Big prizes. The larger the prize, the more it becomes the reason to read, and the stronger the reason to cheat.
• Exposed pupils. Results shared between schools must never name pupils. A pupil's own score is for the pupil, the teacher and the family.

The last risk is the one that matters most. A competition can raise reading while it runs and leave nothing behind. If reading falls back once the season ends, the contest was holding up the behaviour.

How to get the benefits and limit the risks

1. Score the school, per pupil. Use stories finished per pupil, or the share of pupils who read on most days.
2. Match by level. Put schools in leagues with others at a similar reading level.
3. Keep leagues small. Six to ten schools is a sensible start. That number is a judgement, not a tested limit.
4. Run short seasons. Reset every four to eight weeks, so a bad start does not decide the term.
5. Keep prizes small and shared. A certificate for the school and a mention in assembly are enough. Praise the reading itself. See Do Reading Certificates Motivate Students?
6. Publish school results only. Each pupil sees their own record privately.
7. Measure after the season. Count how many pupils read four weeks after it ends, with no prize on offer.

For the practical side, from finding partner schools to a sample set of rules, see How to Run a Reading Competition Between Schools. A competition also works best on top of a daily routine, which How to Build a Daily Reading Streak in Your School describes.

How strong is the evidence?

The research behind this article is solid on competition in general and thin on reading competitions in particular. Murayama and Elliot (2012) is a large meta-analysis across many settings. Tauer and Harackiewicz (2004) studied a sports task. Garcia and Tor (2009) studied test scores and quiz speed. Deci, Koestner and Ryan (1999) pooled experiments with children and adults. None of them tested schools competing at reading in English.

So use the findings as design rules, and test your own competition. Count readers before it starts, during it and after it ends. If more pupils read, and keep reading, it is working. If only the keenest readers took part, change what you count.

How iRead handles this

In iRead, students on the same global pack read the same levelled story and play the same daily game each day, and reading is the only way to score. Scores add up by school, standings update daily, and schools are matched only against schools at the same CEFR level. Public leaderboards show school-level results only, never individual students, and each student sees their own standing privately in the app. Appearing in the inter-school competition is opt-in, and school packs run the same daily game inside one school instead.

Key takeaway

Inter-school competition can add a shared goal and a daily reason to read, but only if it is team-scored, fairly matched and low in pressure. Measure whether pupils keep reading after it ends.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Murayama, K., & Elliot, A. J. (2012). The competition-performance relation: A meta-analytic review and test of the opposing processes model of competition and performance. Psychological Bulletin, 138(6), 1035-1070. doi.org/10.1037/a0028324
2. Tauer, J. M., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2004). The effects of cooperation and competition on intrinsic motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(6), 849-861. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.6.849
3. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2009). An educational psychology success story: Social interdependence theory and cooperative learning. Educational Researcher, 38(5), 365-379. doi.org/10.3102/0013189X09339057
4. Garcia, S. M., Tor, A., & Schiff, T. M. (2013). The psychology of competition: A social comparison perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(6), 634-650. doi.org/10.1177/1745691613504114
5. Garcia, S. M., & Tor, A. (2009). The N-effect: More competitors, less competition. Psychological Science, 20(7), 871-877. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02385.x
6. Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627-668. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.125.6.627