The Biggest Loser Competition

This paper outlines a Biggest Loser (BL) competition for engineering undergraduates. Like the television show of the same name, the BL competition has initial and final ldquoweigh-insrdquo as well as ldquopersonal trainers.rdquo The weigh-ins are essentially assessments of students' preliminary and final achievements. Between the initial and final weigh-ins students are required to lose as much ldquounderachievementrdquo as possible, i.e., they must improve as much as possible, and must enlist personal (peer) trainers to facilitate that improvement. In order to motivate student engagement in the competition, assessment bonuses are made available to those who improve the most. However, these bonuses must be shared equally between the BLs (i.e., biggest improvers) and their peer trainers. The higher achieving students realize that their best strategy for securing a bonus is to help poorly achieving students improve. For this reason, many of the more gifted students willingly commit to mentoring students who need help. Two implementations of the competition for first-year undergraduates have produced impressive and statistically significant improvements in learning.