Investigating Different Approaches to Supporting Mastery Goals in Seventh-Grade Science: A Mixed-Methods Approach

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 1
  In Poster Session: Comprehensive Approaches to Complex Problems: Using Quantitative/Mixed Methods to Study Cognition and Motivation in Context (San Diego)

Abstract

We used a mixed-methods approach to explore how three 7th-grade science teachers enacted different goal structures while teaching the same curriculum and whether students perceived different levels of mastery goal structure within each classroom. Coding of fifteen lessons using the Observing Patterns of Adaptive Learning (OPAL) framework revealed distinct patterns in the teachers’ goal structures. Specifically, the teachers varied in their ability to balance social support and sufficient rigor, especially through consistently mastery-supportive feedback and recognition practices. Mean scores of students’ perceived competence and perceived mastery goal structure for each lesson suggest that the classroom social climate and individual levels of perceived competence in science may be important factors in students’ perceptions of mastery goal structure.

Authors

• Pei Pei Liu, Colby College

• Alexandra Lee, Michigan State University

• David McKinney, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Harmony Murray, Michigan State University

• Jennifer A. Schmidt, Michigan State University

• Gwen C. Marchand, University of Nevada - Las Vegas

• Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia, Michigan State University