Three Levels of Goal Orientation in Learning

Ng, Evelyn; Bereiter, Carl

doi:10.1207/s15327809jls0103&4_1

“…These factors interact with the learning task and the educational setting, and influence how the student learns the target concepts and skills. Of these factors, student goal orientation has been shown to be a strong predictor of learning performance (Ames & Archer, 1988;Cain & Dweck, 1989;Ng & Bereiter, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Student goal orientation in learning inquiry skills with modifiable software advisors

Shimoda

¹

,

White

²

,

Frederiksen

³

2002

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ABSTRACT:A computer support environment (SCI-WISE) for learning and doing science inquiry projects was designed. SCI-WISE incorporates software advisors that give general advice about a skill such as hypothesizing. By giving general advice (rather than step-bystep procedures), the system is intended to help students conduct experiments that are more epistemologically authentic. Also, students using SCI-WISE can select the type of advice the advisors give and when they give advice, as well as modify the advisors' knowledge bases. The system is based partly on a theoretical framework of levels of agency and goal orientation. This framework assumes that giving students higher levels of agency facilitates higher-level goal orientations (such as mastery or knowledge building as opposed to task completion) that in turn produce higher levels of competence. A study of sixth grade science students was conducted. Students took a pretest questionnaire that measured their goal orientations for science projects and their inquiry skills. The students worked in pairs on an open-ended inquiry project that requires complex reasoning about human memory. The students used one of two versions of SCI-WISE-one that was modifiable and one that was not. After finishing the project, the students took a posttest questionnaire similar to the pretest, and evaluated the version of the system they used. The main results showed that (a) there was no correlation of goal orientation with grade point average, (b) knowledgeoriented students using the modifiable version tended to rate SCI-WISE more helpful than task-oriented students, and (c) knowledge-oriented pairs using the nonmodifiable version tended to have higher posttest inquiry skills scores than other pair types.

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“…Bereiter and Scardamalia (1989), for instance, identified two kinds of learners: high intentional and low intentional. More recently, Ng and Bereiter (1991) suggested that learners differ in the type of goals they maintain: task-completion goals, instructional goals, and personal knowledge-building goals. More recently, Ng and Bereiter (1991) suggested that learners differ in the type of goals they maintain: task-completion goals, instructional goals, and personal knowledge-building goals.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Eliciting self-explanations improves understanding,

T.H.

¹

,

Leeuw

²

,

Chiu

³

et al. 1994

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Learning involves the integration of new information into existing knowledge. Generoting explanations to oneself (self-explaining) facilitates that integration process. Previously, self-explanation has been shown to improve the acquisition of problem-solving skills when studying worked-out examples. This study extends that finding, showing that self-explanation can also be facilitative when it is explicitly promoted, in the context of learning declarative knowledge from an expository text. Without any extensive training, 14 eighth-grade students were merely asked to self-explain after reading each line of a possage on the human circulatory system. Ten students in the control group read the same text twice, but were not prompted to self-explain. All of the students were tested for their circulatory system knowledge before and after reading the text. The prompted group had a greater gain from the pretest to the posttest. Moreover, prompted students who generated o large number of self-explanations (the high explainers) learned with greater understanding than low explainers. Understanding was assessed by answering very complex questions and inducing the function of a component when it was only implicitly stated. Understanding was further captured by a mental model onolysis of the self-explanation protocols. High explainers all achieved the correct mental model of the circulatory system, whereas many of the unprompted students as well as the low explainers did not. Three processing characteristics of self-explaining are considered as reasons for the gains in deeper understanding.

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“…Marton and Saljo (1976) likewise postulated two learning approaches: surface versus depth oriented. More recently, Ng and Bereiter (1991) suggested that learners differ in the type of goals they maintain: task-completion goals, instructional goals, and personal knowledge-building goals. It is also the case that spontaneous generation of self-explanations can be correlated with ability.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Eliciting Self‐Explanations Improves Understanding

T.H.

¹

,

Leeuw

²

,

Chiu

³

et al. 1994

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Learning involves the integration of new information into existing knowledge. Generoting explanations to oneself (self-explaining) facilitates that integration process. Previously, self-explanation has been shown to improve the acquisition of problem-solving skills when studying worked-out examples. This study extends that finding, showing that self-explanation can also be facilitative when it is explicitly promoted, in the context of learning declarative knowledge from an expository text. Without any extensive training, 14 eighth-grade students were merely asked to self-explain after reading each line of a possage on the human circulatory system. Ten students in the control group read the same text twice, but were not prompted to self-explain. All of the students were tested for their circulatory system knowledge before and after reading the text. The prompted group had a greater gain from the pretest to the posttest. Moreover, prompted students who generated o large number of self-explanations (the high explainers) learned with greater understanding than low explainers. Understanding was assessed by answering very complex questions and inducing the function of a component when it was only implicitly stated. Understanding was further captured by a mental model onolysis of the self-explanation protocols. High explainers all achieved the correct mental model of the circulatory system, whereas many of the unprompted students as well as the low explainers did not. Three processing characteristics of self-explaining are considered as reasons for the gains in deeper understanding.

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Three Levels of Goal Orientation in Learning

Cited by 28 publications

References 24 publications

Student goal orientation in learning inquiry skills with modifiable software advisors

Student goal orientation in learning inquiry skills with modifiable software advisors

Eliciting self-explanations improves understanding,

Eliciting Self‐Explanations Improves Understanding

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