A new study out of The Ohio State University is sending a clear message to STEM students: Work hard, but stop comparing your hustle to everyone else’s — it’s doing more harm than good.
Published in Contemporary Educational Psychology, the research reveals that students in introductory STEM courses who constantly compare their effort to that of their peers are more likely to doubt their own abilities in science — even if they're working harder. This negative self-perception, dubbed low science self-concept, can spiral into worse academic performance and increased feelings of inadequacy.
“Students in introductory STEM classes need to focus on their own work, rather than comparing themselves to others,” said lead author Hyewon Lee, now a postdoc at the University of California, Irvine. “They should recognize how their hard work is connected to their success.”
The researchers followed 690 undergraduates enrolled in an introductory chemistry course at Ohio State, tracking their perceptions of effort and scientific ability across the semester. They made a crucial distinction between two types of effort:
Criterion effort — when students believe they’re working hard to understand the material.
Comparative effort — when students think they’re working harder than their classmates.
Turns out, that second mindset is a killer. Comparing your grind to others can suggest to your brain that you’re lacking in natural ability — “If I’m working harder, I must be worse at this,” many students concluded.
And it hit both genders — but in different ways.
Women who simply believed they were working hard (criterion effort) showed a boost in confidence and even scored higher. But when they started comparing their efforts to others, the positive effects vanished. Researchers think this could be because women are used to pushing back against outdated gender stereotypes in science, so hard work feels like a badge of honor — until it starts feeling like a sign of weakness.
Men, meanwhile, didn’t show the same confidence boost from trying hard. Instead, their self-belief was more dependent on how well they’d actually performed earlier in the course — like a scoreboard mentality. For them, perceived effort didn’t really move the needle unless the grades followed.
“There’s a feedback loop at play,” said Lee. “Students who believe their effort is paying off tend to perform better, which in turn strengthens their belief that hard work matters.”
But when that effort is seen only in relation to others? The loop breaks, and motivation sinks.
Professor Shirley L. Yu, co-author and head of the SPARKS Lab at Ohio State, said the findings are a wake-up call for educators and institutions. “Intro STEM classes are already tough and competitive. We can’t afford to let harmful comparison habits push capable students — especially women — out of science.”
This is the first known study to dissect the effects of different types of effort perception on actual student performance and science self-concept in real undergraduate classrooms.
Bottom line? Keep grinding — but keep your eyes on your own paper, figuratively and literally. Your success isn’t measured by how hard someone else is working.