Comparing your dissertation progress: Helpful or harmful?

Over the 20 years of my supervisory career I have seen many students benefitting from peer comparison, but I have also had to deal with students feeling very stressed due to unhealthily comparing their progress to others. In this blog post I explain the characteristics of both healthy and unhealthy comparison and offer some strategies to foster healthy comparison. An extended version of this blog post, including additional examples and strategies, is available from the Mindsets resource, or as part of the Virtual Tutor Resource.

Healthy and unhealthy comparison

Healthy comparison inspires growth because students learn from peers by observing effective research strategies and applying them for personal improvement. A sense of positive jealousy - a kind of motivation sparked by seeing others progress - drives this motivation to improve. Healthy comparison fosters your constructive reflection, which in turn helps you to assess your strengths and weaknesses without self-criticism. At the same time, it foster exchanging ideas leading collaboration instead of competition. Ultimately, healthy comparison strengthens your research skills and helps build a supportive academic community, encouraging you to focus on progress rather than comparison.

Unhealthy comparison, in contrast, can derail your dissertation journey, triggering self-doubt and decreasing motivation. Instead of feeling inspired, you may see peers’ progress as proof of your own inadequacy, leading to self-judgment and what I call 'negative envy'. This mindset encourages harsh self-criticism and competitive rivalry (as opposed to collaboration). It also fuels procrastination and imposter syndrome, making you feel discouraged and unworthy. One consequence is to rush through tasks to keep up, compromising research quality, which can result in burnout and emotional exhaustion. Worst of all, unhealthy comparison strips away the enjoyment of the dissertation experience, turning it into a stressful obligation rather than a fulfilling academic pursuit. Left unchecked, this (toxic) mindset weakens your confidence and makes the dissertation process unnecessarily difficult.

Strategies to foster healthy comparison

Recognising whether comparison is motivating or self-destructive is the first step in redirecting thought patterns and behaviours toward a healthier perspective. Based on my experience, there are several strategies that can help promote healthy peer comparison, and in this blog post I will highlight three.

📈 Focus on personal growth rather than competition

Instead of measuring progress against peers with self-criticism, you should focus on how you are improving. You can do this by reflecting on how your research skills have developed over time, and by setting individual milestones rather than tracking other students’ timelines. If you perceive a peer to be doing better than you, view it as an opportunity to learn and to motivate you to improve your work. Healthy comparison should be about self-improvement, not about feeling inadequate.

🦄 Recognise that every dissertation is unique

This is a very important strategy, and one that students who over-compare often fail to recognise. Many students wrongly assume that they are falling behind, yet such perception exists simply because their process looks different from their peers. Comparison is often based on speed (who finishes what parts of the dissertation first), rather than quality. However, I would say that research quality matters more than speed. One of your peers may be claiming to have finished a stage or have written an x amount of words, but you don’t know the quality of that work.

Let me give one very common example I come across, related to data collection. There have been many instances where I have had to deal with students who are still designing their questionnaire and their friends are already collecting or even analysing their data. My answer to them is that they don’t know how good their questionnaire is, and instead what they have to do is to focus on making sure their questionnaire is properly designed, even if it delays the start of data collection a bit longer. Students often report that their friends then faced significant challenges in analysis due to poorly designed questions. Meanwhile, my students who took time to perfect their questionnaire proceed smoothly through analysis, and end up getting a higher grade.

🧭 Seek guidance from tutors

I’ve had many students assuming they are behind after comparing themselves to others and, fortunately, some raise this issue with me to seek reassurance. This is something I always encourage them to do, because we can have an open discussion about progress based on their individual journey, rather than someone else’s. It is not uncommon for the student to conclude that not only he/she is not behind, but looking at the foundations of their research, they are on the path to meet all major milestones to a good standard. Thus, I also recommend that you approach your tutor if you feel you are behind.

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Comparison is natural, but it must be healthy and constructive. You should focus on personal growth, recognise the uniqueness of your dissertation, and seek guidance from your tutor if you have concerns about your progress. A dissertation is not a race against others - it’s a personal journey. If anything, you are ‘competing’ against the learning outcomes and associated marking criteria, as well as the submission deadline (and any intermediate deadlines such as draft submission deadline).

The videos and exercises within the Virtual Tutor Resource can help you to understand what is expected from you and how to develop the skills and mindset required to write a top dissertation. Alternatively, if you want to underpin your dissertation progress on a more solid ground, consider getting my support.