Reciprocal Relationship Between Learning Interest and Learning Persistence: Roles of Strategies for Self-Regulated Learning Behaviors and Academic Performance

Learning interest (internal driving motivation) and learning persistence (explicit behaviors) are important factors affecting students' academic development, yet whether they operate reciprocally and how to bolster them are still issues requiring attention. This study aimed to examine the reciprocal relationship between learning interest and persistence as well as the potential mechanisms behind the relationship from the perspectives of internal self-regulation and external feedback (i.e., academic performance). 510 students (Mage = 13.71, SD = 1.77, 44.1% girls) were tracked for one year using questionnaires. Results showed that higher learning interest was linked to greater subsequent learning persistence and vice versa; and both predicted each other over time indirectly through academic performance and the multiple mediating paths from strategies for self-regulated learning behaviors to academic performance. Ancillary analysis verifies the robustness of these results. The findings not only provide evidence of a dynamic relationship between learning motivation and behaviors, highlighting the important role of positive performance feedback in leading to a benign cycle, but also contribute to understanding the potential avenue (i.e., teaching strategies for self-regulation) for optimizing student learning.

Ready or Not: A Crossover Study of (Un)graded Individual Readiness Assurance Tests in Team-Based Learning

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to measure the effects of graded vs ungraded individual readiness assurance tests (iRATs) on the students' test scores and achievement goals in a team-based learning classroom.

METHODS

A 2 × 2 crossover study was conducted in a required second-year pharmacotherapy course. Teams 1 to 8 were assigned to a UG iRAT during the first half of the course, followed by a G iRAT the second half of the course (G/UG group). Teams 9 to 16 were assigned to the opposite grading sequence (ie, UG/G). A multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze the differences in test scores, as measured using iRAT and examination scores. A separate multivariate analysis of variance was used to examine the differences in achievement goals.

RESULTS

There was a significant difference in test scores based on the iRAT grading condition. Individual readiness assurance tests were higher in the G condition (72.51% vs 67.99%); however, the examination scores were similar in the G and UG conditions (81.07% vs 80.32%). There was no statistically significant difference in the achievement goals based on the iRAT grading condition.

CONCLUSION

In a required second-year pharmacotherapy course that uses team-based learning, student performance on the iRAT was modestly lower in the UG iRAT condition; however, the students' examination scores were unchanged. Achievement goals were unchanged based on the iRAT grading condition.

Deadlines make you productive, but what do they do to your motivation? Trajectories in quantity and quality of motivation and study activities among university students as exams approach

Introduction

Recent research has emphasized that achievement motivation is context-sensitive and varies within individual students. Ubiquitous temporal landmarks such as exams or deadlines are evident contextual factors that could systematically explain variation in motivation. Indeed, research has consistently found that university students increase their study efforts as exams come closer in time, indicating increasing study motivation. However, changes in study motivation for a specific exam as it comes closer have rarely been investigated. Instead, research on developmental changes in expectancy and value beliefs has consistently founds that achievement motivation declines over a semester. Surprisingly, declining motivation thus apparently coincides with increasing study efforts for end-of-semester exams.

Methods

The present research investigates this apparent contradiction by assessing how exam-specific motivation and study behavior change under equal methodological conditions as an exam draws closer. Using parallel growth curve models, we examine changes in expectancy-value beliefs, performance approach and avoidance motivation and study behavior as well as motivational want- and should-conflicts among 96 students over eight weekly measurement points.

Results and discussion

Results show that students study more for their exam as it comes closer and increase their use of surface learning strategies more rapidly than their use of deep learning strategies. However, even exam-specific expectancy and attainment value beliefs decline while performance-avoidance motivation increases over time, indicating that students increasingly study out of fear to fail as exams come closer. Consistent with these findings, students' experience of should conflicts decreases while their want conflicts increase over time. We discuss several possible mechanisms underlying our findings in addition to potential theoretical consequences and suggest future research opportunities to better understand students' changes in situative motivation and study behavior in the context of temporal landmarks.

The impact of adolescent achievement goal orientation on learning anxiety: The mediation effect of peer interaction

Learning anxiety is one of the most critical emotional disturbances, which also has a high incidence rate in adolescents. Peer interaction is critical and unique for adolescents. Although previous studies have found that achievement goal orientation has an important role in the development of learning anxiety, its mechanism has not been clarified. This study surveyed 470 adolescents (191 middle school students and 279 high school students; 211 boys) and established a structural equation model to explore the mediating role of peer interaction in the influence of achievement goal orientation on learning anxiety. Results showed that (1) there were significant gender differences in mastery-avoidance goal orientation, peer interaction, and learning anxiety, and there were grade differences in performance-approach goal and performance-avoidance goal orientations; (2) mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, and performance-avoidance goal orientations directly predicted learning anxiety; and (3) social anxiety in peer interactions had a mediating effect on the influence of mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, and performance-avoidance goal orientations on learning anxiety. The findings extend theoretical considerations by teasing out the process of peer interaction affecting the relationship between achievement goal orientation and learning anxiety. Additionally, the results have practical implications for the effective use of peer interaction to reduce learning anxiety.

Type of goals and perceived control for goal achievement over time. The mediating role of motivational persistence

This study tested how type of goals (i.e., performance and mastery goals) influence perceived control for goal achievement over time (i.e., after 12 months) while controlling for motivational persistence, gender, self-efficacy, initial perceived control, emotional involvement, and perceived difficulty. Goals and self-reported data from 1220 students were analyzed. Comparative test indicated that students describing a mastery goal display more motivational persistence and more perceived control for goal achievement, compared to those describing a performance goal. Type of goals directly and significantly predict perceived control of goal achievement at 12 months. Motivational persistence directly, positively, and significantly predicts perceived control of goal achievement at 12 months. In addition, motivational persistence positively and significantly mediates the relation between type of goals and perceived control of goal achievement at 12 months. Results support a partial mediation model.

Longitudinal Stability and Change in Young Students’ Mastery-Approach Goals for Running

In the present study, we examined the longitudinal stability and change in mastery-approach goals for running as offered in regularly scheduled physical education (PE) and athletics classes in the United States. There were five waves of data collection from 806 students (431 boys; 375 girls) who were tracked from fourth to eighth grade while participating in running activities in PE or athletics classes. We assessed the participants’ mastery-approach goals using four items on a 5-point scale. We found acceptable longitudinal construct validity, measurement invariance, and scale reliability for the scores of mastery-approach goals, and we found these goals to have moderate stability across this 5-year period. Latent growth modeling revealed a linear decline in mean mastery-approach goal scores over the five school years. We concluded that the assessment of mastery-approach goals over time was both valid and reliable and that these running mastery-approach goals were stable in most respects but became less intense over time.

Suitability of Motivational Regulation Strategies for Specific Motivational Problems

Abstract. Learners utilize a variety of strategies to regulate their motivation. Theoretical models of motivational regulation imply a connection between the decision for a concrete strategy and the specific situational requirements. Accordingly, one would expect that the suitability of a strategy depends on how well it fits the motivational problem in question. Since reliable findings on this point are missing, we conducted a survey of N = 33 proven experts in the field of self-regulated learning to enlighten the suitability of nine strategies for six different motivational problems. Our findings showed that the suitability of a group of strategies was consistently considered dependent on the given motivational problem (e. g., ability-focus self-talk was suitable to enhance motivation for a difficult task) – pointing to the importance of conditional strategy knowledge for learners. For another group of strategies, experts’ suitability judgments were indifferent, indicating that strategy suitability may also comprise idiosyncratic (i. e., person-specific) aspects.

Tracking Changes in Students' Online Self-Regulated Learning Behaviors and Achievement Goals Using Trace Clustering and Process Mining

Success in online and blended courses requires engaging in self-regulated learning (SRL), especially for challenging STEM disciplines, such as physics. This involves students planning how they will navigate course assignments and activities, setting goals for completion, monitoring their progress and content understanding, and reflecting on how they completed each assignment. Based on Winne & Hadwin’s COPES model, SRL is a series of events that temporally unfold during learning, impacted by changing internal and external factors, such as goal orientation and content difficulty. Thus, as goal orientation and content difficulty change throughout a course, so might students’ use of SRL processes. This paper studies how students’ SRL behavior and achievement goal orientation change over time in a large (N = 250) college introductory level physics course taught online. Students’ achievement goal orientation was measured by repeated administration of the achievement goals questionnaire-revised (AGQ-R). Students’ SRL behavior was measured by analyzing their clickstream event traces interacting with online learning modules via a combination of trace clustering and process mining. Event traces were first divided into groups similar in nature using agglomerative clustering, with similarity between traces determined based on a set of derived characteristics most reflective of students’ SRL processes. We then generated causal nets for each cluster of traces via process mining and interpreted the underlying behavior and strategy of each causal net according to the COPES SRL framework. We then measured the frequency at which students adopted each causal net and assessed whether the adoption of different causal nets was associated with responses to the AGQ-R. By repeating the analysis for three sets of online learning modules assigned at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester, we examined how the frequency of each causal net changed over time, and how the change correlated with changes to the AGQ-R responses. Results have implications for measuring the temporal nature of SRL during online learning, as well as the factors impacting the use of SRL processes in an online physics course. Results also provide guidance for developing online instructional materials that foster effective SRL for students with different motivational profiles.

When pursuing bad goals for good reasons makes it even worse: a social value approach to performance-avoidance goal pursuit

Consistently in achievement goal research, pursuing performance-avoidance goals has been associated with a decrease in achievement. Less is known to what extent this effect depends on the reasons underlying these goals' endorsement. The present research uses a social value approach to assess how do performance-avoidance goals' effects on achievement depend on the reasons anchored in social utility (goal endorsed in order to succeed) and in social desirability (goal endorsed in order to please one's teachers). Based on five correlational samples meta-analyzed in Study 1, results showed that perceiving performance-avoidance goals as socially useful increased the negative effect of these goals on achievement. This moderating effect was replicated experimentally in Study 2. These findings support the relevance of studying achievement goal complexes and illustrate that performance-avoidance goals may lead to deleterious consequences even when endorsed for seemingly good reasons.

I See My Future!: Linking Mentoring, Future Work Selves, Achievement Orientation to Job Search Behaviors

Mentoring is related to young adults’ career planning. The present study attempts to examine whether the perception of future work selves could be a critical mediating mechanism underlying the relationship between the reception of mentoring functions and job search behaviors. Moreover, we also investigated the moderating role of achievement orientation on this relationship. We tested our hypotheses with a time-lagged research design. Results indicated that psychosocial mentoring was related to future work selves, and future work selves were associated with job search behaviors. Future work selves mediated the relationship between psychosocial mentoring and job search behaviors. Moreover, achievement orientation moderated the direct and indirect effects of psychosocial function on job search behaviors. Specifically, the aforementioned relationships were stronger when achievement orientation was high compared to when achievement orientation was low. Important theoretical and practical implications for mentoring and career research are discussed in the current study.

Goal Orientations and Activation of Approach Versus Avoidance Motivation While Awaiting an Achievement Situation in the Laboratory

While some students try to give their best in an achievement situation, others show disengagement and just want to get the situation over and done with. The present study investigates the role of students' tendencies for approach or avoidance motivation while anticipating tasks and the corresponding activation of the approach/avoidance motivational system as indicated by transient changes of EEG alpha asymmetry. Overall, 62 students (50 female; age: M = 23.8, SD = 3.5) completed a goal orientation questionnaire (learning goals, performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and work avoidance). They joined a laboratory experiment where EEG was recorded during resting condition as well as when students were anticipating tasks. Standard multiple regression analysis showed that higher values on performance-avoidance were related to a higher activation of the approach system whereas higher values on work avoidance were related to a higher activation of the avoidance system. Results question present assumptions about avoidance related goal orientations.

Pro-Social Goals in Achievement Situations: Amity Goal Orientation Enhances the Positive Effects of Mastery Goal Orientation

Research has neglected the utility of pro-social goals within achievement situations. In this article, four studies demonstrate that amity goal orientation, promoting mutual success of oneself together with others, enhances the utility of mastery goal orientation. We demonstrate this in longitudinally predicting performance (Studies 1 and 2) and in maintaining motivation after a disappointing performance (Studies 3 and 4). The studies demonstrate the same interaction effect in academic and in work achievement contexts. Specifically, whereas amity goal orientation did not predict achievement on its own, it enhanced the positive effect of mastery goal orientation. Together, these studies establish the importance of amity goal orientation while also advancing our understanding of the effects of other achievement goal orientations. We suggest future directions in examining the utility of amity goals in other contexts.

Assessing Mathematics Classroom Goal Structures in a Sample of Italian Students During Sixth Grade

The present study analyzed the factor validity of the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scale (PALS) to assess students’ perceptions of mathematics classroom goal structures. Participants were N = 7,773 Italian students aged from 11 to 15 years ( M = 11.97, SD = 0.50). The confirmatory factor analysis replicated a three-factor structure (i.e., mastery, performance-avoidance, and performance-approach goals) of the scale. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses supported configural, metric, and scalar measurement invariance of the scale across gender. Moreover, the students’ mathematics achievement was positively related to mastery goals and negatively associated with performance-avoidance goals. The use of the scale may help teachers to understand the relations between classroom goal structures and mathematics achievement during middle school.

Goal orientations of health profession students throughout the undergraduate program: a multilevel study

BACKGROUND

The achievement goal theory defines two major foci of students' learning goals (1) primarily interested in truly mastering a task (mastery orientation), and (2) striving to show ones competences to others (performance orientation). The present study is undertaken to better understand if and how health profession students' goal orientations change during the undergraduate program and to what degree gender, academic achievement, and self-efficacy are associated with mastery and performance orientation between students and within students over time.

METHOD

By means of an online questionnaire, students of medical, pharmaceutical, and veterinary sciences (N = 2402) were asked to rate themselves on mastery orientation, performance orientation, and self-efficacy at the beginning of five consecutive semesters. Data on grades and gender were drawn from university's files. Multilevel analyses were used for data analysis.

RESULTS

Students' goal orientations showed relative stability over time, but substantial fluctuations within individual students were found. These fluctuations were associated with fluctuations in self-efficacy. Students' gender, high school grades, study grades, and self-efficacy were all associated with differences in mastery or performance orientation between students. Self-efficacy was the strongest predictor for mastery orientation and grades for performance orientation.

CONCLUSIONS

The relatively strong association between the goal orientations and students' self-efficacy found in this study emphasizes the potential of enhancing self-efficacy in health profession students. Also, for educators and researchers, fluctuations of both goal orientations within individual students are important to consider.

The student-institution fit at university: interactive effects of academic competition and social class on achievement goals

As compared to continuing-generation students, first-generation students are struggling more at university. In the present article, we question the unconditional nature of such a phenomenon and argue that it depends on structural competition. Indeed, most academic departments use harsh selection procedure all throughout the curriculum, fostering between-student competition. In these departments, first-generation students tend to suffer from a lack of student-institution fit, that is, inconsistencies with the competitive institution’s culture, practices, and identity. However, one might contend that in less competitive academic departments continuing-generation students might be the ones experiencing a lack of fit. Using a cross-sectional design, we investigated the consequences of such a context- and category-dependent lack of fit on the endorsement of scholastically adaptive goals. We surveyed N = 378 first- and continuing-generation students from either a more competitive or a less competitive department in their first or final year of bachelor’s study. In the more competitive department, first-to-third year decrease of mastery goals (i.e., the desire to learn) was found to be steeper for first- than for continuing-generation students. In the less competitive department, the reversed pattern was found. Moreover, first-to-third year decrease of performance goals (i.e., the desire to outperform others) was found to be steeper within the less competitive department but did not depend on social class. This single-site preliminary research highlights the need to take the academic context into account when studying the social class graduation gap.

Investigating the relationship between pharmacy students' achievement goal orientations and preferred teacher qualities

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the relationships between pharmacy students' preferred teacher qualities and their academic achievement goal orientations.

METHODS

Participants completed an achievement goal questionnaire and a build-a-teacher task. For the latter, students were given a $20 hypothetical budget to purchase amounts of 9 widely valued teachers' qualities.

RESULTS

Three hundred sixty-six students participated. Students spent most of their budget on the traits of enthusiasm, expertise, and clear presentation style, and the least amount of money on interactive teaching, reasonable workload, warm personality, and intellectually challenging. In relation to achievement goals, negative associations were found between avoidance goals and preferences for teachers who encourage rigorous thinking and self-direction.

CONCLUSION

These novel findings provide a richer profile of the ways students respond to their learning environment. Understanding the relationships between teachers' characteristics and pharmacy students' achievement goal orientations will contribute to improving the quality of pharmacy learning and teaching environments.

An Explanatory Model of Academic Achievement based on Aptitudes, Goal Orientations, Self-Concept and Learning Strategies

As a result of studies examining factors involved in the learning process, various structural models have been developed to explain the direct and indirect effects that occur between the variables in these models. The objective was to evaluate a structural model of cognitive and motivational variables predicting academic achievement, including general intelligence, academic self-concept, goal orientations, effort and learning strategies. The sample comprised of 341 Spanish students in the first year of compulsory secondary education. Different tests and questionnaires were used to evaluate each variable, and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied to contrast the relationships of the initial model. The model proposed had a satisfactory fit, and all the hypothesised relationships were significant. General intelligence was the variable most able to explain academic achievement. Also important was the direct influence of academic self-concept on achievement, goal orientations and effort, as well as the mediating ability of effort and learning strategies between academic goals and final achievement.

The Impact of Feedback on Goal Setting and Task Performance

This research project was undertaken in response to Kluger and DeNisi’s (1996 ) call for more primary studies to investigate specific propositions of the feedback intervention theory (FIT). To study the assumptions of FIT on the level of task-motivation processes, we analyzed the impact of combined positive and negative feedback. Participants (N = 413) performed a series of tasks in which they were to indicate the number of athletes appearing in short video sequences of different sports. After each task performance the participants received manipulated feedback and were to choose between predetermined options (e.g., raise the level of difficulty, maintain the level of difficulty). We found that the participants most frequently raised the difficulty level after receiving positive feedback and maintained the level after receiving negative feedback. There were no significant differences in the performance of participants who raised and those who maintained the difficulty level after receiving positive or negative feedback. However, the performance of participants who raised the difficulty level after receiving positive feedback increased more than that of those who maintained the difficulty level after receiving negative feedback. In addition, we observed an increase in participants’ avoidance behavior in response to repeated negative feedback. The results partially confirmed the assumptions of the FIT.

Using Goal Orientation to Enhance College Retention and Graduation Rates

In this study goal orientation theory, a model used to explore achievement motivation that is commonly covered in introductory psychology textbooks, is used to improve student success. Some variants of the theory posit that mastery goals are associated with adaptive behaviours that can lead to increased success. As a result, the authors of this study developed an intervention designed to increase the pursuit of mastery goals. In previous research, they found that the intervention was associated with altered goals and improved grades. In the current study, they examined the consequences for retention and graduation rates. During the fall 2005 semester, the intervention was extended to 221 students enrolled in introductory psychology classes. A similar set of students who did not receive the intervention served as a comparison group. Five years later, the authors examined the students' transcripts for persistence in school. Students who were at risk for failure and who completed the intervention enrolled in courses at the university at nearly twice the rate of the comparison group in each of the subsequent years, and they graduated at nearly twice the rate of the comparison group. Thus, this intervention was associated with increased retention and graduation rates.