Poster #4 - Promote Learning Through Goal Discussion: A Field Experiment

• In Event: 77.059 - MTCC Tuesday Poster Session 18
  In Poster Session: 77.059-1 - Exploring Motivational Constructs in Authentic Academic Settings

Abstract

Low academic achievement is often the result of students failing to understand what their teachers expect of them. Many teachers address this issue by listing instructional goals in the syllabus, but prior research shows that students do not necessarily understand the underlying principles of those broader terms and how they are to be assessed. Built on research on goal and metacognition, we created an intervention that required students to have a discussion with their teacher about how the instructional goals were prioritized. Results show that students in the goal discussion condition scored significantly higher, planned their study more strategically, and predicted their final grade more accurately than their peers. The theoretical and practical contributions of the study will be discussed.

Author

• Zhongqi Shi, Columbia University