MEASURE FOR MEASURE: SOCIAL COMPARISON IN INTRODUCTORY AND ADVANCED GEOSCIENCE COURSES

Student demographics in introductory geoscience courses vary understandably and significantly from those in courses designed for geoscience majors. A predictable difference is that students in introductory courses are often there in order to satisfy a general education graduation requirement whereas declared majors are presumably enrolled in upper-level courses based on their interest. Consequently, motivations and expectations among students in those two types of classes are also distinct. Less is known, however, about how non-majors or declared geoscience majors may compare themselves with their peers. Our focus here is on the concept of social comparison orientation, the extent to which a student gauges individual performance against performance of others. We conducted a survey study that included questions related to social comparison with students in introductory geoscience as well as upper-level geoscience courses. To provide further context to our survey, we also included items from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ); these items help characterize the relationship between goal orientation—aiming for a grade versus aiming for understanding—with social comparison orientation. The broader goal for the project is to investigate how students’ existing social comparison orientations may influence their response to grades on different assessments.