Undergraduate students’ achievement goals for conducting research: examining the motivational benefits of laboratory classroom affiliation

Rooted in achievement goal theory, the buffering hypothesis posits that contextual factors serve to moderate the deleterious effects of personal achievement goals on relevant outcomes. The present study sought to test this hypothesis by examining the interactive effects of classroom affiliation perceptions and personal achievement goals for conducting research on participants’ goal strivings within physics, biology and chemistry laboratory classes. Participants consisted of 185 undergraduate students voluntarily engaged in faculty-led research. Results indicated that affiliation strengthened the positive association between research mastery goals and class-based mastery approach goals. In contrast, perceptions of affiliation in the laboratory environment weakened the relationship between research mastery goals and performance approach goals. The importance of academic climates as facilitators of goal striving in classrooms designed to cultivate research skill development is discussed.     

Motivational goal orientation, perceptions of biology and physics classroom learning environments, and gender

Researchers have reported persuasive evidence that students?? perceptions of their classroom learning environment account for significant variance in cognitive and affective outcomes (e.g. intrinsic motivation, self-concept, liking for particular subjects and students?? intention to drop out). The study reported in this paper investigated the relationship between students?? perceptions of classroom learning environment and motivational achievement goal orientations towards biology and physics, as well as the influence of gender. Participants (N?=?1538) were high school science students from the north-eastern region of Thailand. Our results suggest that motivational goals are linked to differences in students?? perceptions of learning environment and levels of biology and physics classroom anxiety. We found that females adopted significantly higher levels of mastery and performance approach goals towards biology, while males adopted significantly higher levels of mastery and performance approach goals towards physics. Males adopted significantly higher levels of performance avoidance goals towards both biology and physics. Positive associations emerged between gender and the adoption of specific performance goals, perceived degree of competition in biology and physics classrooms, and levels of biology and physics classroom anxiety. These results suggest that motivational goal orientations and perceptions of learning environment are gender-dependent and domain-specific for the two science content areas.     

Perceptual Influence of Ugandan Biology Students’ Understanding of HIV/AIDS

In Uganda, curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS has largely depended on public and private media messages about the disease. Media campaigns based on Uganda’s cultural norms of communication are metaphorical, analogical and simile-like. The topic of HIV/AIDS has been introduced into the Senior Three (Grade 11) biology curriculum in Uganda. To what extent do students’ pre-conceptions of the disease, based on these media messages influence students’ development of conceptual understanding of the disease, its transmission and prevention? Of significant importance is the impact the conceptions students have developed from the indirect media messages on classroom instruction on HIV/AIDS. The study is based in a theoretical framework of conceptual change in science learning. An interpretive case study to determine the impact of Ugandan students’ conceptions or perceptions on classroom instruction about HIV/AIDS, involving 160 students aged 15–17, was conducted in four different Ugandan high schools: girls boarding, boys boarding, mixed boarding, and mixed day. Using questionnaires, focus group discussions, recorded biology lessons and informal interviews, students’ preconceptions of HIV/AIDS and how these impact lessons on HIV/AIDS were discerned. These preconceptions fall into four main categories: religious, political, conspiracy and traditional African worldviews. Results of data analysis suggest that students’ prior knowledge is persistent even after biology instructions. This has implications for current teaching approaches, which are mostly teacher-centred in Ugandan schools. A rethinking of the curriculum with the intent of offering science education programs that promote understanding of the science of HIV/AIDS as opposed to what is happening now—insensitivity to misconceptions about the disease—is needed.     

The relation between mastery goals and intrinsic motivation among university students: a longitudinal study

The present work broadens previous research on students’ mastery goals and intrinsic motivation by exploring their reciprocal effects using a longitudinal approach. To this end, a study using four measurement points was conducted during 10 weeks of one semester. The sample comprised 1156 students enrolled in psychology courses at a medium-sized university in Germany who completed questionnaires. The findings showed that both constructs were intra-individually stable over the course of one semester although the rank-order stability of mastery goals was higher than the rank-order stability of intrinsic motivation. Cross-lagged structural equation models revealed that students’ mastery goals predicted their intrinsic motivation throughout the semester. However, intrinsic motivation did not predict mastery goals. Results are discussed in terms of a potential integration of achievement goal theory and self-determination theory and their practical implications.     

Effects of text structure,reading goals and epistemic beliefs on conceptual change

We investigated the online and offline effects of learner and instructional characteristics on conceptual change of a robust misconception in science. Fifty‐nine undergraduate university students with misconceptions about evolution were identified as espousing evaluativist or non‐evaluativist epistemic beliefs in science. Participants were randomly assigned to receive a traditional or refutational text that discussed a misconception in evolution and a general comprehension or elaborative interrogation reading goal. Participants' cognitive and metacognitive processes while reading were measured using a think‐aloud protocol. Postreading, participants' correct and incorrect conceptual knowledge were separately assessed with a transference essay. Results showed that text structure and reading goals affected cognitive conflict, coherence‐building and elaborative processing while reading and promoted correct conceptual knowledge included in essays but failed to affect the inclusion of misconceptions. Further, participants with evaluativist epistemic beliefs engaged in fewer comprehension monitoring processes and were more likely to adapt their coherence‐building processes according to reading goals than their non‐evaluativist counterparts, but epistemic belief groups did not differ in the content of the posttest essay. Theoretical and educational implications of these findings are discussed.     

2 × 2 Achievement goals and achievement emotions: a cluster analysis of students' motivation

This study sought to better understand the adoption of multiple achievement goals at an intra-individual level, and its links to emotional well-being, learning, and academic achievement. Participants were 480 Secondary Two students (aged between 13 and 14 years) from two coeducational government schools. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed the presence of five clusters of students with significantly different achievement goal profiles. MANOVAs and ANOVA, followed by post-hoc tests showed that these clusters also differed significantly in terms of their experience of achievement emotions, use of learning strategies, and mathematics performance. The cluster with high endorsement of mastery approach goal and low endorsement of mastery avoidance goal was noted to have the most adaptive profile. The presence of a cluster of lowly motivated students was highlighted. Findings emphasised the importance of investigating achievement emotions, and how the different achievement goals combine to influence achievement-related variables.     

The Function of a Research Bureau in a State Department of Education

ABSTRACT

A hands-on instructional approach with medium-achieving 10th-grade students (N = 294) successfully demonstrated the achievement of a conceptual change. Two teaching variations were applied (I-1, I-2), both dealing with a hands-on gene technology lesson in an out-of-school laboratory. I-2 additionally confronted the participants with alternative conceptions to some of the central issues involved in gene technology following a constructivist teaching model. The authors monitored the percentage of alternative conceptions by pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest. In the long term, I-2 abandoned more of students’ alternative conceptions in favor of the orthodox scientific view. Furthermore, a gender effect appeared: In the short term, more young men within I-2 were forced to shift to more scientific conceptions. Young women filed their alternative conceptions also in the long term, independently of the applied instructional method.     

Fostering conceptual change and critical reasoning about HIV and AIDS

One of the challenges of science education is for students to develop scientific knowledge that is personally meaningful and applicable to real‐life issues. This article describes a middle‐school science intervention fostering adolescents' critical reasoning in the context of HIV by strengthening their conceptual understanding of HIV biology. The intervention included two components: critical reasoning activities that fostered knowledge integration and application to real‐world problem solving, and science writing activities that promoted argument building. Two seventh‐grade classes participated in the study. One class participated in the critical reasoning and writing activities (CR&W); the other class participated in critical reasoning activities only (CR group). Results demonstrate significant pre‐ and posttest improvements on measures of students' HIV knowledge, HIV understanding, and critical reasoning about realistic scenarios in the context of HIV, with the improvements being greater in the CR&W group. The discussion focuses on the role of conceptual knowledge in health reasoning, the role of science writing in fostering knowledge integration, and the benefits of a “thinking curriculum” approach to integrated health and science education. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 844–863, 2007     

Effects of Classroom Structure on Student Achievement Goal Orientation

Abstract

The authors assessed how classroom structure influenced student achievement goal orientation for mathematics. Three elementary school classes were assigned randomly to 1 classroom structure condition: token economy, contingency contract, or control. Students in each condition were required to set individual achievement goals on a weekly basis. The authors assessed differences in goal orientation by comparing the number of learning vs. performance goals that students set within and across classroom structure conditions. Results indicated that students in the contingency-contract condition set significantly more learning goals than did students in other classroom structure conditions. No significant differences were found for performance goals across classroom structure conditions. Within classroom structure conditions, students in the contingency-contract group set significantly more learning goals than performance goals, whereas students in the token-economy condition set significantly more performance goals than learning goals.     

Do performance goals promote learning? A pattern analysis of Singapore students’ achievement goals

This study investigated how achievement goals are combined to affect students’ learning. We used a multiple goals perspective, based on mastery (i.e., mastery approach) and performance (including both approach and avoidance components) goals, to examine the achievement goal patterns of 1697 Singapore Secondary 3 students in their math study. Four types of goal clusters emerged from latent class cluster analyses: Diffuse (moderate multiple), Moderate Mastery (moderate mastery/low performance approach and avoidance), Success Oriented (moderate mastery/high performance approach and avoidance), and Approach (high mastery and performance approach/low performance avoidance). Analyses of covariance were conducted to compare these four clusters on eleven cognitive, behavioral, and affective learning outcomes. In general, students in the Success Oriented and Approach groups were higher on self-efficacy, subjective task values, class engagement, homework engagement, time management, and meta-cognitive self-regulation than those in the other two groups. In addition, students in the Approach and Moderate Mastery groups were more likely to make effort when encountering difficulties in learning math, showed lower test anxiety, lower negative affect, and achieved higher scores in math than students in the other two groups. These findings suggest that the goal profile with high mastery and performance approach goals combined with low performance avoidance goals is most beneficial for learning, whereas high performance approach goals, when associated with performance avoidance goals, have some negative effects on affective outcomes. The patterns help to refine distinctions in performance goals, and are discussed in the context of academic achievement in Singapore.     

Achievement goals and classroom goal structures: Do they need to match?

Abstract

It is often assumed that students’ personal achievement goals are most beneficial when they match the goal structures of the classroom, but interaction between achievement goals and goal structures is not well researched. In this study, we aim at providing a nuanced picture of the direct, interaction, and nonlinear effects of achievement goals and goal structures on test performance and autonomous motivation. We used multiple linear regressions, including interaction and quadratic terms, in combination with response surface methodology to analyze questionnaire data from students in Grades 6-10. We found no evidence for a general match effect, and only weak indications of interactions between achievement goals and goal structures. Thus, the match between classroom goal structures and students’ personal goals may be less important for students’ motivation and achievement than previously assumed. Still, based on our results we recommend a focus on mastery structures in the classroom.     

Temperament,personality and achievement goals among Chinese adolescent students

Temperament and personality have been presumed to affect achievement goals based on the hierarchical model of achievement motivation. This research investigated the relationships of temperament dimensions and the Big Five personality traits to achievement goals based on the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework among 775 Chinese adolescent students. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the 2 × 2 framework could be generalised to the Chinese context. Six of the nine temperament dimensions (e.g. activity level – general, flexibility–rigidity, and task orientation) significantly predicted mastery‐approach, mastery‐avoidance, performance‐approach and performance‐avoidance goals. Neuroticism, extroversion and conscientiousness significantly predicted all the above‐mentioned four achievement goals; openness and agreeableness significantly predicted the mastery‐orientated and performance‐oriented achievement goals, respectively. Compared with temperament, personality was the stronger predictor for achievement goals. These results supported the posited relationship of ‘hard‐wiring’ variables to achievement goals in the conceptual model of achievement motivation.     

Predicting Singapore students' achievement goals in their English study: Self-construal and classroom goal structure

This study examined the role of self-construal and classroom goal structure in predicting Singapore secondary students' achievement goals in their English study. Students from 104 classes were administered surveys of achievement goals, classroom goal structure, English self-concept, and self-construal. The results of two-level hierarchical linear modeling showed that after controlling for gender, previous English achievement, and English self-concept, interdependent self-construal significantly predicted mastery approach and avoidance goals, while independent self-construal was associated with performance approach, performance avoidance, and mastery approach goals. Mastery classroom goal structure predicted mastery approach and avoidance goals, whereas performance classroom goal structure predicted performance approach and avoidance goals as well as mastery avoidance goals. In addition, students with interdependent self-construal in classrooms with a performance focus were more likely to endorse mastery approach, mastery avoidance, and performance avoidance goals, while students with independent self-construal in classrooms with a performance focus tended to have performance approach goals. This study provides validation for the 2 × 2 framework of achievement goals, and advances our knowledge of how students adopt multiple goals. The findings are related to the educational achievement context of Singapore.     

Examining Hong Kong students’ achievement goals and their relations with students’ perceived classroom environment and strategy use

This study examined Hong Kong students’ achievement goals and their relations with students’ perceived classroom environment and strategy use based on the multiple goal perspective of goal orientation theory. A total of 925 Grade 8 students from six secondary schools in Hong Kong voluntarily responded to a questionnaire that measured these three sets of variables. Consistent with previous studies using goal orientation theory, the findings of this study indicated that students’ perceived classroom environment was significantly related to their personal achievement goals and strategy use. While mastery goals were found to be the strongest predictor of strategy use, performance‐approach goals and perceived instrumentality also had positive relations with mastery goals and strategy use. Our findings suggest that mastery goals and performance goals were not contrasting goals as conceptualised in normative goal orientation theory. Students with high motivation for both types of goal were more adaptive in learning than were students who pursued a single type of goal. Moreover, the value of adding perceived instrumentality when studying students’ motivation should be emphasised. The implications of these findings for understanding Hong Kong students’ motivation, and for planning effective teaching instruction to enhance their motivation, are discussed.     

Performance‐approach goals,task‐avoidant behaviour and conceptual knowledge as predictors of first graders’ school performance

The present paper aims to examine the relationship between first grade children’s performance‐approach goal orientation, task‐avoidant behaviours, conceptual knowledge and their achievement in maths and literacy. The sample consisted of 174 first grade children and their class teachers. Children’s self reports of their performance‐approach goals and avoidant behaviours as well as teacher‐reports of children’s avoidant behaviours were used. Our results indicate that performance‐approach goal orientation positively predicts children’s self‐reported task‐avoidant behaviours which in turn have a negative effect on children’s achievement outcomes. The negative effect of teacher‐rated avoidant behaviours on children’s achievement outcomes was even greater than the positive influence of children’s conceptual knowledge. These results suggest that the relationships between goal‐orientations, achievement behaviours and achievement outcomes start to form early in children’s school career (or even before that) and that children’s self‐report of their achievement goals and behaviours provide a valuable knowledge already in this early age.     

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.     

A Focus in the Humanities for Resource Management Education

Abstract

This paper describes a study concerned with the ranking of five major goals of biology instruction by biology teachers, college preparatory biology students, non-college preparatory biology students, and public school administrators in order to determine the relative emphasis each group believed should be given to a socia/environmental goal. The hypothesis of no difference in the ranking of instructional goals was retained and the ranking of the socia/environmental goal by the four groups also did not differ significantly. The subjects in this study seemed to prefer the social/environmental goal in fourth place ahead of a career orientation to the teaching and learning of biology.     

Examining the stability of achievement goal orientation

We examined stability and change in students’ achievement goal orientations over varying tasks. Two naturalistic longitudinal studies were conducted in undergraduate courses. Students completed self-reports designed to measure their achievement goals. Achievement goals were measured four times: prior to two assignments and two exams. Four complementary analytic techniques were used to examine goal stability: differential continuity, mean-level change, individual-level change, and profile consistency. Results across both studies provide evidence for stability and change across tasks in achievement goal orientation, and comparisons made between similar and different tasks resulted in similar levels of change. Implications for theory and research in achievement goal orientation are discussed.     

The effectiveness of conceptual change texts in remediating high school students’ alternative conceptions concerning chemical equilibrium

This study investigated the effectiveness of conceptual change texts in remediating high school students’ alternative conceptions concerning chemical equilibrium. A quasi-experimental design was used in this study. The subjects for this study consisted of a total 78 tenth-grade students, 38 of them in the experimental group and 40 of them in the control group. A questionnaire, the Alternative Conceptions about Chemical Equilibrium Test (ACCET), was developed and administered to students as a pretest and posttest. While the experimental group received a conceptual change text instruction, the control group received a traditional style instruction. The results of the study indicated that the students in the experimental group showed significantly greater levels of achievement than the students in the control group. Moreover, in both groups the percentages of students’ alternative conceptions decreased in the however the experimental group did better than the control group.     

Goal orientations and achievement among Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong

This study examined four goal orientations and their relationships to achievement among 1041 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. These students endorsed learning and social goals over performance‐approach and performance‐avoidance goals. The endorsement of learning goals emerged consistently as the significant predictor predicting achievement in academic, non‐academic, and social/leadership areas. Implications of the findings for coordinating different goal orientations for enhancing achievement in different areas are discussed.