Title: Classroom Goal Structure, student motivation, and academic achievement.
Author Name: Christen Neal
Selected Case (Published Article):
E., Anderman, L., Anderman, J., Meece. Classroom Goal Structure, Student Motivation, and Academic Achievement. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2006. 57: 487-503
1. Introduction
Major organizations have called for paradigm shifts in how teachers think about learning and teaching. Instead of focusing on rote learning and memorization, curriculum standards that began to emerge in early 1990s emphasized the importance of individual inquiry, problem solving, collaborative learning, and mastery of key concepts. With anticipation, policy makers hoped to close achievement gaps and ensure that all students, regardless of any existing disadvantage, will make significant gains in school.
There hasn’t been much research available to evaluate the effects of various reform efforts of the past 25 years on student learning and motivation. Likewise, even fewer studies have examined how these different reform efforts influence important aspects of the classroom or school environment that young people experience. In lieu of this, many child development research suggests that schools are one of the most influential social contexts for children’s development.
In this article, the authors adopt an achievement goal framework for examining the influence of different classroom and school environments not only on student’s achievement, but also on their motivation and self perceptions.
2. Overview of the Case
This article will focus on motivation theories including achievement goal theory and how they improve student motivation through interventions as implicated by each theory. In other words, students adopt measures in a classroom setting to assess achievement goals, and the influence of different achievement goals on various developmental outcomes, including measures of motivation to learn, classroom engagement and adjustment, and academic achievement. Additionally, the article includes how research on instructional practices, and how strategies in grading and evaluation practices can create different goal structures in the classroom and influence student outcome measures. Finally, the article discuss efforts to change the goal structures of classrooms and schools.
The focal motivational theory of the article, Achievement Goal Theory, focuses on the processes that explain goal-directed activity. Achievement goal theory is situated in social cognitive view of motivation that links achievement-related behavior to individual expectancy and value perceptions. In other words, individuals are more likely to engage in a particular achievement task when they expect to do well and when the task has some value to them.
3. Solutions Implemented
Relations of Individual Achievement Goals to Achievement-Related Behaviors-
Much achievement-related patterns that are set in motion by different motivational goals indicate that students show the most positive achievement patterns when they focused on mastery goals. With these high expectations, students persist at difficult tasks, report high levels of task involvement, report high levels of task involvement, report high levels of effort and persistence, and use learning strategies that enhance conceptual understanding and recall of information.
4. Outcomes
Achievement goal research focuses on examining student outcomes in laboratory and classroom settings. Researchers have used goal orientation theory to help guide school reform of school-wide and classroom specific instructional practices in line with achievement goal- orientation theory.
5. Implications
Goal orientation theory has been used to help guide school reform. Researchers have engaged in projects aimed at the reform of school-wide and classroom-specific instructional practices that align with achievement goal theory. In order to achieve implement this improvement, researchers worked with teachers, parents, and administrators at both the elementary and middle school level to examine and reform instructional practices in line with achievement goal-orientation theory. The groups met over numerous years to critically examine school policies and practices in light of mastery and performance goals. The staff was asked to continuously examine the potential effects of their schools’ policies on a variety of outcomes. Specifically, staff members considered whether individual policies fostered mastery or performance goals.
Researchers conducted a quasi-experimental design to confirm the schools were able to change their policies and practices in order to foster the development of personal mastery goals in students. In the experiment, teachers consciously chose to emphasize mastery goals over performance goals, and the various changes in practice and policy that were implemented have positive effects on a number of outcomes.
Implications for this study suggest by using goal orientated goals in lieu of performance-based goals, students will have higher achievement. This study was conducted before the effects of No Child Left Behind, therefore, I agree with the implications and findings. For elementary students, performance-based goals have resulted greater self-reported cheating and disruptive behaviors in the classroom, which can reduce learning opportunities for all students.