A Critical Review of Studies on Coopetition in Educational Settings

The benefits and limitations of utilizing collaborative and competitive activities within and between groups to facilitate learning are well known. Typically, these two concepts are viewed as mutually exclusive approaches, where one is favored over the other in the classroom. However, utilizing an approach that takes advantage of the strengths of both while minimizing each one’s weaknesses, could greatly enhance students’ learning. This approach is called coopetition. Because of the dominance of collaboration and competition, the number of studies investigating coopetition in learning environments is rather limited. Therefore, this article reviews the extant studies using a coopetitive approach to provide a fuller understanding of this concept. Altogether, 33 articles were retrieved and analyzed using a grounded constant-comparative approach. As a result of the analysis, three categories of research topics emerged: (a) organization of coopetition, including zero-sum coopetition and social comparison coopetition, (b) medium and coopetition, including coopetition conducted in conventional face-to-face settings and computer-mediated settings, and (c) application of coopetition in education, which covers multiple areas such as cognitive, affective, and social domains, as well as educational management. The review discusses each category in detail, highlighting implications for future educational research and practice.