Teachers' intrinsic vs. extrinsic instructional goals predict their classroom motivating styles

We introduce the concept of teachers' intrinsic vs. extrinsic instructional goals and demonstrate its contribution to teachers' classroom motivating styles using independent samples across four studies. Based on self-determination theory, we hypothesized that the more teachers adopted intrinsic instructional goals the more they would rely on an autonomy-supportive motivating style, and the more they adopted extrinsic instructional goals the more they would rely on a controlling motivating style. Because no measure existed to assess intrinsic vs. extrinsic instructional goals, we created the new 4-scale, 16-item Teacher Goals Questionnaire (TGQ) in Study 1, using a pool of 72 candidate items and data from 212 fulltime K-12 teachers. In Study 2, we demonstrated the TGQ's construct and factorial validity by sampling 149 fulltime K-12 teachers. In Study 3, we tested our hypothesized model by sampling 147 fulltime K-12 teachers who reported their instructional goals on the TGQ and their motivating styles on two separate measures. Structural equation modeling analyses confirmed the hypothesized model. In Study 4, we replicated the findings from Study 3, using a multilevel sample (92 secondary teachers, 2749 students), a longitudinal research design, and student measures of teachers' motivating styles. The discussion focuses on instructional goals as key antecedents of teachers' classroom motivating styles.     

Social competence as an educational goal: The role of the ethnic composition and the urban environment of the school

This article concerns the relationship between social–educational goals and the school context. We used a questionnaire to map the educational goals of teachers in pre-vocational education in the field of social competence, and investigated whether these goals were related to the percentage of students from ethnic-minority groups and to the urban environment of the school. The results show that all teachers, regardless of the school context, value promoting the social development of their students as an educational goal. We did not find a relationship between the context the teachers work in and the social-competence goals they aspire to in their subject. However, teachers working in a more complex school environment, in terms of both the ethnic heterogeneity of the student population and the urban environment of the school, did consider a number of social-competence goals to be less attainable for their students. The results are discussed in the light of research on the competences young people need to participate in a multi-cultural society and the implications for teachers and teaching.     

Achievement Goals and Student Well-Being

This study is concerned with the role that achievement goals may play in facilitating the psychological well-being of students. Specifically, we build on “goal theory” analysis of adaptive behavior in examining the relationship between task and ego goals, perceptions of school emphases on task and ego goals, and indices of well-being and disruptive behavior. Generally, task goals and perception of the school as emphasizing task goals were related to positive psychological well-being, and ego goals and perceiving the school as emphasizing ego goals were related to negative psychological well-being. This pattern was found for both African American and Euro-American students. However, path analyses pointed to possible different processes as operating for the African Americans and the Euro-Americans in the sample.     

Academic,social, and well-being goals in the classroom: The dynamic interplay between multiple goals and self-regulatory processes

Much attention has been given to investigating specific self-regulatory processes within a single goal context, yet little is known about how students manage to pursue multiple goals. We adopted a multi-method approach to examine the content of college students’ (N = 365) multiple goals, interrelations of goals in a goal network, and the role of self-regulatory processes during multiple goal pursuit. First, using thematic coding of qualitative data, we identified different types of academic, social, and well-being goals that students pursue within a particular college course. Second, using data visualization, we illustrated how these goals are dynamically connected to each other within a goal network. Finally, using mediation analysis of quantitative data, we found that students’ perceptions of the interrelations of goals were associated with academic, social, and well-being outcomes, either directly or indirectly through the use of motivational regulation strategies.     

Arab Perspective About the Application of Information Technology in Science Education

This paper discusses influences and concerns of the application of information technology (IT) in the Arab World. The paper argues that IT can influence the four elements of curriculum. Goals that are related to higher order thinking and problem solving abilities will gain much significance, while goals that are related to lower order thinking will gain much less significance. Science education goals will have to contain a goal that indicates the importance of preparing scientifically and technologically literate citizens. Content will have to match changes in goals. Rather than enforcing heavy content, more emphasis will be given to IT skills as well as to integrating technology in the science laboratory. Pedagogy will be more student-centered. Students will be held responsible for their own learning. Assessment will be facilitated by technology, where both process and content will be equally important. This paper discusses several concerns that are related to the application of IT in science education in the Arab World. Some of these concerns are: ignorance of incorporating the positive aspects of the Arab culture; Arab World view; language difficulties; high cost of IT hardware and software; and the use of IT to find information rather than make meaning (education). This paper recommends that successful implementation of IT in science education is a major professional challenge to Arab science educators. To meet this challenge effectively in science education, both of its promises and our concerns should be taken into consideration.     

Educational Aims,Ideals, and Activities

Abstract

The effects on student performance and student attitudes of varying the instructional locus of control between students and teachers were investigated. A 2 X 2 factorial design was used that included either teacher regulation or student regulation of 1) the setting of weekly learning goals, and 2) the evaluation of weekly work. After a 4-week period, a mathematics achievement test and a student attitude survey were administered. Results indicated that although teachers set more individual learning goals for students, students who set their own learning goals attained more of them. Students tended to evaluate their work more favorably than teachers, and work evaluations from both teachers and students were higher for students who initially set their own learning goals. In addition, students who were given the opportunity to set their own learning goals reported better goal-setting ability than those for whom goals were externally imposed by the teacher. As predicted, the self-regulated goal setting and evaluation were found to be significantly related to attitudes, but not to mathematics achievement.     

Understanding teachers’ professional learning goals from their current professional concerns

In the day-to-day workplace teachers direct their own learning, but little is known about what drives their decisions about what they would like to learn. These decisions are assumed to be influenced by teachers’ current professional concerns. Also, teachers in different professional life phases have different reasons for engaging in professional learning. In this study, we explored the professional concerns underlying teachers’ learning goals in order to understand variation in professional learning over a teacher’s career. In this qualitative study, we administered a semi-structured interview and a card sorting task to 15 secondary school teachers to elicit teachers’ learning goals and current professional concerns. By conceptually combining teachers’ learning goals with professional concerns in concern-goal pairs, we sought to understand the different reasons for teachers’ learning. These concern-goal pairs were characterized in three different types of reasons: continuous, growth and improvement, and work-management. The results showed that early career teachers have mainly growth and improvement concerns, whereas mid- and late-career teachers have both continuous and growth and improvement concerns. Work-management concerns differ for early- and late-career teachers. Results are further discussed in terms of professional life phase models and teachers’ developmental tasks throughout their career.     

The Finnish Educational Goals Project

Sauvala, A. 1983. The Finnish Educational Goals Project. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 27, 129‐144. The purpose of the Project was to survey the appreciation and attainment of educational goals at schools among different population groups. Parents and teachers valued the goals the most, while university students and school administrators valued them the least. The widest consensus of acceptance was elicited by the goals of over‐all personality and mental health, and by ethical‐social and work‐related goals, the attainment of which improves during schooling. Simultaneously, the attainment of esthetic, national, health and religious goals decreases. The results have been utilized, for example, in drafts for comprehensive and upper secondary school legislation. The bill includes the goal of responsibility, valued the most by vocational school teachers and school administrators, and that of appreciation for peace, valued the most by secondary school pupils.     

基于课程与教学目标的作业设计研究

根据教学发展历程,我国的作业设计主要有三种类型:教师中心的作业设计、教材中心的作业设计和基于课程和教学目标的作业设计。为了减少作业的随意性,增加有效性,应该从基于教师自身经验或教科书的作业设计,走向基于课程和教学目标的作业设计,即课程和教学目标是作业目标来源,作业评价和批改设计先于作业设计,指向学生学习能力和效果。基于课程和教学目标的作业设计,要求教师能够像专家一样,结合课程标准、教材、教学进度与内容进行整体地考量。这种作业模式要从理想走向现实必须完善学科课程标准,提高教师作业设计能力。     

State and trait goals of achievement and well-being: structure,validity, and stability

Both school achievement goals (mastery, performance approach, performance avoidance goals) and well-being goals (work avoidance, affiliation goals) are important predictors of learning and achievement related outcomes. However, disagreement exists regarding the definition of goals as relatively stable traits versus situational states that react sensitive to contexts. This paper presents the development of an inventory for the assessment of students’ multiple state and trait goals. In Study 1, students (N?=?196) answered the trait items. The results of an exploratory factor analysis indicated the construct validity of the goals. In Study 2, students completed trait and state scales in different weeks (N?=?542) and repeatedly after 12 weeks each. Confirmatory factor analyses as well as correlations with state and trait reference constructs confirmed the convergent and differential validity of both the trait and the state goal factors. The instrument offers a brief, reliable, and valid measure of multiple state and trait goals. Latent state trait analyses revealed that some state goals are surprisingly robust against situational influences and equally stable across time as corresponding trait goals, whereas other goals are more dependent on the learning situation.     

A New Look at Multiple Goal Pursuit: the Promise of a Person-Centered Approach

The current study reviewed and synthesized studies employing a person-centered approach to studying achievement goals. Towards this end, a common labeling scheme was developed for goal profiles. Ten profile types were identified across studies and compared via meta-analytic techniques in terms of academic motivation, social/emotional well-being, engagement, and achievement. Two theoretically relevant profiles—Mastery High and Approach High—were relatively common and adaptive across all outcomes; the Performance/Work Avoidance Low profile was also generally adaptive. The Average All Goals and Low All Goals profiles, conversely, were consistently maladaptive. The pursuit of performance-approach, performance-avoidance, or work-avoidance goals alone was rare and generally maladaptive except with respect to achievement. Supplementary moderator analyses revealed that school level and goal model—but not analytic technique—were important variables to consider regarding both the prevalence and adaptive nature of goal profiles. This research synthesis provides insight into longstanding debates within the achievement goal literature and highlights the potential of person-centered analyses to complement findings from more predominant variable-centered research.     

Releasing the socio-imagination: children's voices on creativity,capability and mental well-being

With increasing concerns in the UK about the positive mental well-being and flourishing of children, this research, using drama and creative writing with primary school teachers, children and a theatre company, looks at the links between creative processes and children's well-being. This pedagogy applies a capability approach and we use this lens to examine children's critical reflections on the project. Interview data highlight the link between agency, social imagination and subjective well-being. The study offers some concrete examples of the ways in which creative processes can move beyond an outcome-based understanding of the curriculum by offering a legitimate space for children to explore their values and develop competencies which are crucial for well-being in the 21st century.     

Students’ goals and self-regulation in the classroom

This chapter argues for an understanding of action regulation as inextricably related to the motivational process of goal setting and planning. Within this conceptual framework our research has explored students’ action patterns, both in normal ongoing classroom situations and in stressful circumstances. Goals are emphasized as essential aspects of the motivational quality of activities, namely through the role they play in the regulation of action. In this study the detection of students’ behavioral goals is addressed. Several achievement and social goals are described and ways to assess students’ goal setting and planning processes are proposed. Strategies that students use to handle classroom stressors are explored. These include strategic flexible action, strategic rigid action, passive behavior, and disorganized behavior. These strategies represent distinct forms of action regulation. Relations between students’ strategies, which are viewed as indications of their control, and agency beliefs are also examined. Finally, classroom features, which might help or hinder students’ self-regulation are discussed, including teachers’ goals and students’ perceptions of teachers’ goals for classroom activities.     

Achievement goals and approaches to studying: evidence from adult learners in distance education

Achievement goals predict learning in children and young adults, but it is unclear whether they apply to older adults and how they are related to approaches to studying. An online survey examined achievement goals, approaches to studying and academic attainment in distance learners. The Achievement Goals Questionnaire-Revised and the Approaches to Learning and Studying Inventory were given to 2000 students, yielding 1211 responses. The findings confirmed the 2?×?2 model of mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals in adult distance learners. Mastery goals were positively associated with deep and strategic approaches to studying but negatively associated with a surface approach. Performance goals showed only weak associations with approaches to studying. Performance-approach goals were positively related to attainment, performance-avoidance goals were negatively related to attainment, but mastery goals were unrelated to attainment. The relationship between achievement goals and attainment was partly but not wholly mediated by approaches to studying.     

Associations between teachers’ interpersonal behavior,physiological arousal,and lesson-focused emotions

Interpersonal aspects of teaching have repeatedly been linked to teacher emotions and well-being on a general level. However, it is unclear how teachers’ moment-to-moment interpersonal behavior is associated with their physiological arousal during teaching and how this contributes to their lesson-focused emotional outcomes. Eighty secondary education teachers with a mean age of 43.7 years (SD = 11.5) and 13.4 years of teaching experience (SD = 9.7) participated during one real-life lesson. We coded teacher behavior from an interpersonal perspective on the dimensions of agency (i.e., social influence) and communion (i.e., friendliness). Teachers’ physiology (in terms of heart rate) was measured as a proxy for their affective arousal. Teachers differed widely in their behaviors and in how behavior and physiology were associated from moment to moment. Being generally agentic was associated with higher levels of self-reported positive emotions after the lesson, also when being agentic went together with a high heart rate. In contrast, the stronger and the more positively a teacher’s physiological arousal was associated with displaying communal behavior, the more likely a teacher was to report negative emotions. We conclude that combining moment-to-moment data of teachers’ interpersonal behavior and physiological arousal has the potential to explain differences in teachers’ emotional outcomes. Such an approach might ultimately provide teachers and teacher educators with the fine-grained and personalized information needed to foster teacher well-being.     

The 2 × 2 standards and standpoints measure of EFL teachers’ achievement goals: Model revision and relations with affective and behavioral outcomes

This study aimed to develop and validate a 2 × 2 Standpoints and Standards measure of EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ achievement goals. To this end, 441 teachers were first involved in scale development and validation phase. In the second phase, responses by 194 teachers were used to examine the predictive utility of achievement goals with respect to some correlates such as type of feedback information and emotional exhaustion. Phase 1 results supported validity and reliability of the scale for measuring EFL teachers’ achievement goals. In phase 2, structural equation modeling showed positive patterns for original mastery approach goals, though these goals positively predicted self-validation information. Original mastery avoidance goals also positively associated with emotional exhaustion. Moreover, the results showed negative patterns for original performance goals. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Teacher beliefs about feedback within an assessment for learning environment: Endorsement of improved learning over student well-being

Teachers’ understandings of feedback probably influence the type and quality of feedback that they provide. The beliefs of 518 New Zealand practicing teachers about feedback were evaluated with the Teachers’ Conceptions of Feedback (TCoF) inventory and related to practices these teachers considered to be feedback. Nine feedback factors and four practices factors were found and models were statistically invariant between primary and secondary teachers. New Zealand teachers’ understandings of feedback were strongly focused on improving learning instead of enhancing student well-being. Similar factors are expected in other contexts, though agreement rates should reflect local policy priorities and cultural values.     

谈教师专业发展的目标

从对教师职业的社会需求和教师发展的自我需要出发确定教师专业发展的目标。包括8个方面,即人文精神、专业知识、道德品性、教学智慧、创新意识、自我意识、研究能力和教师职业幸福。     

A seven year longitudinal multi-factor assessment of teaching concerns development through preparation and early years of teaching

This study was designed to assess, over a seven year period from the commencement of teacher preparation through five years of teaching, the development of teachers' self, impact, and task concerns as formulated by Fuller for a longitudinal sample of teachers (N = 60) and to determine what, if any, personal and academic attributes of teachers might be associated with these teachers' changes in concerns about teaching as postulated by the Fuller model. Statistically significant developmental changes in the teachers' concerns about teaching were identified with concerns about survival as a teacher (self concerns) decreasing and concerns about the task of teaching increasing, as hypothesized by Fuller; whereas the teachers' impact upon pupil concerns were highest in intensity but relatively stable at all four points in career development. Interactions between career stages and teacher characteristics were identified, however, indicating that the self and impact concerns can not be adequately explained by just points of time in career development as also hypothesized by Fuller. Concerns about teaching were found to be related to grade point averages, gender, and personality type but not with basic academic skills, academic majors, family characteristics, ACT scores, and locus of control orientations.     

Teaching With and About Nature of Science, and Science Teacher Knowledge Domains

The ubiquitous goals of helping precollege students develop informed conceptions of nature of science (NOS) and experience inquiry learning environments that progressively approximate authentic scientific practice have been long-standing and central aims of science education reforms around the globe. However, the realization of these goals continues to elude the science education community partly because of a persistent, albeit not empirically supported, coupling of the two goals in the form of ‘teaching about NOS with inquiry’. In this context, the present paper aims, first, to introduce the notions of, and articulate the distinction between, teaching with and about NOS, which will allow for the meaningful coupling of the two desired goals. Second, the paper aims to explicate science teachers’ knowledge domains requisite for effective teaching with and about NOS. The paper argues that research and development efforts dedicated to helping science teachers develop deep, robust, and integrated NOS understandings would have the dual benefits of not only enabling teachers to convey to students images of science and scientific practice that are commensurate with historical, philosophical, sociological, and psychological scholarship (teaching about NOS), but also to structure robust inquiry learning environments that approximate authentic scientific practice, and implement effective pedagogical approaches that share a lot of the characteristics of best science teaching practices (teaching with NOS).