Lai Swee Choo Patricia Goh Deline Victoria Soh

1. A Study of Achievement Goals in a Single Sex Independent School: Student interest, Learning Strategies and Performance Lai Swee Choo Patricia Goh Deline Victoria Soh

2. Why Motivation? • Students: • Learn more from a motivated activity • They retain that learning better • Are involved in their own learning and development • Exhibit behavioral characteristics such as persistence, and are more ready to meet challenges in life when they leave school

3. Why Achievement Motivation? • Achievement Motivation: • Achievement motivation is seen as the driving force that directs an individual towards a goal and the reason for engaging in a task is related to an individual’s goal orientations . • Elliot (1999) • It affects what happens in the classroom because it influences how students approach tasks, how they interpret and evaluate achievement-related information, and how they set goals and effort expenditure for tasks. • Seegers, Putten & Brabander (2002)

4. Literature Review • Taiwanese students’ motivation, cognitive engagement, and grades were positively associated with mastery goals. • Performance-approach goals were adaptive in terms of children's use of cognitive strategies and their grades. • Performance-avoidance goals were related to students' maladaptive motivation. • Shih (2005)

5. Literature Review • Singaporean students who scored high on mastery goal orientations were likely to score high on deep processing such as critical thinking and self-regulation. • Lam (2008) • Another study documented that Singaporean students who scored high on mastery goal orientation were likely to score high on adaptive learning strategies such as critical thinking and self-regulation. • Jang (2008)

6. Literature Review • In another study in an autonomous school, mastery goals were related to interest. • Critical thinking and self regulation positively related to Mathematics results. • Goh (2010)

7. Achievement Goal Theory

8. Theoretical Background • A mastery goal orientation is defined in terms of a focus on learning, mastering the task according to self-set standards or self-improvement, developing new skills, improving to developing competence. • A performance goal orientation represents a focus on demonstrating competence or ability and how ability will be judged relative to others. • Elliott and Dweck(1988)

9. Theoretical Background • Mastery goals will promote mastery-orientated response to obstacles • strategy formulation, positive affect, and sustained performance. • Performance goals will render an individual vulnerable to helpless response in the face of failure, low ability attributions, negative affect, and impaired performance.

10. Theoretical Background • Mastery approach: to be more skillful in the task • Mastery avoidance: to avoid forgetting the task • Performance approach: to show that he/she is better than others • Performance avoidance: to avoid appearing dumb relative to others • Elliott and McGregor (2001)

11. Theoretical Background • Pattern for mastery approach goals was found to be more positive than that for mastery avoidance goals. • Mastery avoidance goals more positive than that for performance approach and performance avoidance goals. • Elliot & McGregor (2001) • Zusho & Pintrich (2000)

12. Purpose of Study • To examine students’ achievement goals, students’ learning strategies, interest and results. • To examine the predictors of students’ interest and results.

13. Participants and Procedures • Participants • 158 Secondary Four Students • Procedures • One questionnaire with 66 items: • Achievement Goal Questionnaire (AGQ) (Elliot & McGregor, 2001), • Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich, 1989) • Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (McAuley, Duncan, & Tammen, 1989). • 7 point scale (1 = Not true at all to 7 = very true) • Pearson correlations • Basic regression

14. Internal Consistency (Alpha)

15. Internal Consistency (Alpha)

16. Internal Consistency (Alpha)

17. Results & Discussions Achievement Goal • Mastery approach goal positively related to results

18. Results and DiscussionsLearning Strategies • Positive correlation between learning strategies and results • Significant positive correlation between organisation & critical thinking • Significant positive correlation between organisation & self regulation

19. Results and DiscussionsPredictors of Results • Mastery approach are significant predictors of results.

20. Results and Discussions Predictors of Interest • Mastery approach are significant predictors of interest • Performance approach are significant predictors of interest.

21. Implications for Teachers • Teachers should help students become aware of how to think, learn and reason within the particular discipline. • Pintrich (1995)

22. Implications for Teachers • Teachers are encouraged to emphasize on mastery, personal improvement, and understanding in the classroom. • Research has demonstrated that when students perceive a strong mastery goal structure in the classroom, they are more likely to pursue personal mastery goals • Urdan & Midgley (2003)

23. Implications for Teachers • TARGET Framework : • Task Design • Distribution of Authority • Recognition of Students • Grouping Arrangements • Evaluation Practices • Time allocation • Epstein (1988) & Ames (1992)

24. Implications for Teachers

25. Implications for Teachers • Encourage learning strategies such as organization, critical thinking and self regulation. • Organization • active effortful action and it includes clustering, outlining and selecting the main idea in reading passages. • Pintrich, McKeachie, & Smith (1989)

26. Implications for Teachers • Critical Thinking: • The degree to which students report applying previous knowledge to new situations in order to solve problems. • Pintrich, McKeachie, & Smith (1989) • Teachers should teach students to question, to analyze and to look beyond the superficial for all possible answers • Carr (1988) • Four techniques of clarification. • Stating what you are saying explicitly and precisely. • Elaborating on your meanings, • Giving examples • Using analogies, metaphors, pictures, or diagrams to illustrate • Paul & Elder (2001)

27. Implications for Teachers • Four Techniques of Clarification: • State what you are saying explicitly and precisely • Elaborate on the meanings • Give examples • Use analogies, metaphors, pictures, or diagrams to illustrate • Paul & Elder (2001)

28. Implications for Teachers • Self regulation: • refers to the awareness, knowledge and control of cognition. • Pintrich, McKeachie, & Smith (1989) • Teachers should encourage goal setting and then teach students to revisit or self-monitor their progress towards their goal that they have set for themselves. • Goal setting and self-monitoring as cornerstones of self regulation. • Harris, Reid, and Graham (2004)

29. ~ Thank you ~ Feel free to contact us at sweechoo@nygh.moe.edu.sg patricia_goh@ngeeannsec.edu.sg deline@nygh.moe.edu.sg End