What is Competition in STEM Classes? "It's Not Just the Curve"

The culture of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) is often cited as being competitive. This creates a driving force for attrition from these fields, especially for minoritized students. But what-according to students-defines competition in the STEM classroom environment? This study seeks to answer that question by examining the factors that students report as contributing to competition in STEM classrooms. To do this, we conducted semistructured interviews with 25 first-generation and racially minoritized students enrolled in an introductory biology course, and with experience in other university-level STEM courses. Using thematic analysis, we identified four broad categories shaping students' sense of competition: student factors (e.g., grade comparisons), instructor factors (e.g., instructor messaging), course factors (e.g., grading), and out-of-class factors (e.g., intended career goals). These findings suggest that competition is not a singular classroom characteristic but rather a multidimensional experience shaped by interpersonal, environmental, and structural factors. We contextualize our findings in a conceptual framework of competition, which identifies how trait-competitiveness, perceived environmental competitiveness, and structural competition all shape competition. Our findings help operationalize these dimensions of competition in STEM classrooms and provide actionable context for mitigating the disproportionate impact of competition on minoritized students.