Academic Goal Attainment Research Articles

Have performance-based educational reforms increased adolescent school-pressure in Sweden? A synthetic control approach

Increased levels of stress and other mental health problems have been reported amongst adolescents in high-income countries. In particular, rates of school-pressure have increased significantly. Despite such increases, little is known about the underlying determinants of increased adolescent stress, making this an emerging public health concern. The educational stressors hypothesis contends that increased rates of stress result from pronounced performance pressures placed on adolescents resulting from educational policy initiatives which emphasizes academic goal attainment. The present study tests this hypothesis using a synthetic control method and panel data techniques to analyse data from the Health Behavior in School-aged children (HBSC) survey, including more than 150,000 adolescents per survey wave in 25 European countries over 16 years, to assess if the Swedish Educational reforms implemented in the 2011–13 period were associated with increased self-reported school-pressure. These reforms implemented increased summative assessments, new grading systems and increased eligibility criteria in accessing further education. Results demonstrate that following the reforms, Swedish adolescents experienced greater levels of school-pressure and led to a greater gender difference in experienced school-pressure where girls were relatively more affected. We conclude that, consistent with the educational stressors hypothesis, the educational reforms have likely contributed to increasing levels of school-pressure for Swedish adolescents.

Implementation of mobile learning strategies and their effect on English Language Teaching (ELT)

Introduction: Mobile learning strategies are related to remote learning because they motivate learners to use technological devices such as computers, tablets or smartphones for academic purposes. As a result, greater indexes of compromise, learning, and development of communicative competencies in a foreign language are generated. Objective: This study explores how to boost the level of English proficiency among professors by implementing m-learning strategies as a response to the university’s foreign language policy. Methodology: The study was based on action research with data collection instruments such as an entry test, forums, perception surveys, and students’ learning products. Results and discussion: m-learning strategies were used to foster the attainment of academic goals by participants and to enrich their professional growth as teachers and students. Furthermore, they were prompted to update and incorporate technological resources while the didactic teaching process. Conclusions: participants developed a metacognitive process when using m-learning strategies so that they could make autonomous learning decisions and enhance their pedagogical practice.

Emancipatory Tendencies of Ubuntu-like Classrooms as an Enhancer of Student Academic Prowess

Classrooms are sometimes laced with various pedagogical styles, which even though professional, may be alien to the students, leading to demotivation. Such demotivation usually results from a lack of affectionate pedagogical processes that affect students’ academic prowess, such as academic performance, achievement and attainment of academic goals. A teaching-learning process that does not accommodate professional affections may lead to an unpleasant end where the classroom purposes are defeated. Hence, this study presents Ubuntu as an emancipatory philosophy that ensures unhindered student achievement and performance. The study is positioned to answer a question: How can Ubuntu be presented to unravel ineffective classroom practices towards students’ emancipation. The study is designed within the transformative worldview to emancipate students and challenge the classroom status quo. This study was analysed using conceptual analysis, in which concepts derived from Ubuntu are subjected to intellectual and deductive interpretation for meaning-making. In this study, Ubuntu is presented alongside its three cardinal assumptions based on the researcher’s view. The assumptions (collaboration and togetherness; humanness; recognition and respect) were analysed and correlated with the classroom activities to promote students’ academic prowess. The study concludes that Ubuntu-like classrooms are the dimension of productive classroom practices towards students’ academic prowess. Therefore, the study recommended that classrooms be laced with collaboration, togetherness, and humanness, where students’ voices and opinions are recognised and respected. Keywords: Ubuntu philosophy, ubuntu classrooms, academic prowess, transformation, emancipation.

Conceptualising and Building Trust to Enhance the Engagement and Achievement of Under-Served Students

This conceptual article asserts the importance of building and sustaining trust between higher education students and practitioners within the online environment. Instilling trust can construct sustainable learning environments that are abundant with collaborative inquiry and dialogue. In this article, we highlight and investigate the conceptual construct of trust and its antecedents. Considering the nature and purpose of interpersonal trust in student-instructor relationships within online higher education institutions, we explore several factors (in particular, performativity, casualisation of teaching staff, neoliberalism, non-traditional student identities, and the digital divide) which influence the development of trust. We also investigate the role of trust in influencing student engagement and achievement, in terms of attainment of academic goals. Notably, we highlight the importance of further inquiry into methods of rapport-building in higher education. Theoretical foundations have been drawn from Indigenous scholarship as well as organisational and socio-psychological literature. We close by welcoming further discussion and reflection on institutional practices and performance measures in the digital environment, particularly in terms of whether they allow instructors to embed relational aspects and elicit cognitive and affective trust from their students.

Mental contrasting with implementation intentions increases study time for university students.

Goal setting is a core aspect of human behaviour that drives action. The intention to achieve one's goals, however, does not necessarily translate into desired outcomes. Although the mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) strategy has demonstrated strong efficacy, limited investigations have been conducted in a university academic goal-setting context. The current study sought to investigate the efficacy of MCII in facilitating academic goal attainment in university students. Fifty-eight students from Macquarie University, Australia, were randomly allocated to either MCII or stress management training, and were assessed on their progress towards the target goal of increased hours of study four weeks later. Goal attainment scaling (GAS) facilitated the generation of tailored specific goals and was the primary outcome measure. An analysis of covariance indicated that students trained in MCII achieved significantly better goal outcomes than those trained in stress management for both broad (p=.038) and course- or unit-specific (p=.005) study goals. Results highlight the efficacy of using MCII and GAS in combination to promote increased study time for university students.

Enhancing Secondary Students’ Goal Attainment and Self-Determination in General Education Mathematics Classes Using the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction

Almost every state includes content standards that are closely related to skills associated with self-determination (e.g., decision making, planning, problem solving, goal setting and attainment). Additionally, research in both general and special education has demonstrated a close relationship between the promotion of self-determination and positive school (e.g., academic goal attainment) and post-school (e.g., employment) outcomes. Therefore, this study examines implementation of an evidence-based intervention to promote self-determination in inclusive, general education classrooms. This study utilized multilevel linear modeling to examine changes in student self-determination in secondary mathematics classes after a year of exposure to The Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI). Participants included were 81 students ranging from 10th to 12th grade learning in secondary mathematics classes (Algebra II, Pre-Calculus, and Advanced Placement Calculus). The findings demonstrated a small, positive effect on student self-determination and that goal attainment during the first semester predicted second semester goal attainment. Specifically, the inclusion of goal attainment as a predictor explained 10% of the variability in self-determination observed, corresponding to a small effect. Overall, students who attained at higher level of goal attainment had higher self-determination at the conclusion of the study and were expected to grow in their self-determination at a higher rate than those with lower levels of goal attainment. The results from this study suggest that implementing the SDLMI to support all students in secondary mathematics classes positively impacts student attainment of skills that impact self-determination and has the potential to impact mathematical learning in future research.

From dispositional affect to academic goal attainment: the mediating role of coping

The purpose of this research was to examine a mediation model in which coping was hypothesized to mediate the relationship between positive and negative dispositional affect and academic goal attainment. At Time 1, a sample of 217 undergraduate students completed measures of dispositional affect and set a personal academic goal. At Time 2, 4 weeks later, they completed a follow-up questionnaire assessing their coping strategies and degree of goal attainment. Results from structural equation modeling revealed that task-oriented coping significantly mediated the relationship between dispositional positive affect and goal attainment. Results also supported disengagement-oriented coping as a mediator in the relationship between dispositional negative affect and goal attainment. These findings highlight the role of coping as an important process in the relationship between dispositional affect and goal attainment.

Impact of Learned Resourcefulness and Theories of Intelligence on Academic Achievement of University Students: An integrated approach

This was the first study to integrate Rosenbaum's concept of learned resourcefulness with Dweck's implicit theories of intelligence in predicting university students' academic self‐control behaviour and year‐end grades. Rosenbaum highlights the prominent role that learned resourcefulness skills play in promoting mastery responses and goal attainment during difficult situations. Dweck, on the other hand, describes how students' beliefs about intelligence direct their goal‐setting preferences and correspondent reactions to disappointing performance outcomes. Students completed self‐report measures assessing their learned resourcefulness skills, academic self‐control skills, academic self‐efficacy, theories of intelligence, goal orientation, and attributions for academic failure. Our findings supported the integrated approach to understanding academic goal attainment. Students who reported engaging in academic self‐control behaviours possessed a better‐developed repertoire of general self‐control skills, believed in their academic ability to succeed, applied more effort in response to academic setbacks, valued learning something new in class more than merely getting good grades, and actually obtained higher grades. Theories of intelligence had an indirect association with academic self‐control through ability attributions. Directions for future research are noted.

Trait Identification as a Means of Predicting Academic Goal Attainment

IT IS THE PURPOSE of this study to consider the feasibility of using personality features as a basis for judgment in predicting academic goal at tainment. Interest in the problem has led to inten sive investigation (1, 2, 3) of behavior traits which aid in adaptive responses toward academic goals. The attempt hypothesizes the presence of distinc tive forces in addition to intellect which are a priori to achievement. Conceptualized, the behavior of emotional energy described as traits is the force which presses toward response. Sthenic,or posi tive,emotion appears as personal warmth, out goingness, and the individual is said to possess the trait of sociability. Asth?nie, or negative, emotion appears as aggression, belligerence, and the per son is said to possess the trait of pugnacity. The assumption concerning the role of behavior features or traits poses inquiry. A specific question may be stated as follows: Can the relevance or weight of traits in determin ing academic response be considered in isolation of the complex of mental life and its consequents? It is assumed that the mind organizes its con tent, gives meaning to situations and determines which traits shall operate in adaptive response or in carrying out a course of action under conditions of the specified environment. Further, emotional energy, some of which is deeply embedded, has force potential which takes shape under the press of particular environmental stimulations different from the form which it would have taken in the ab sence of these stimulations. Finally, goal-reaching is the function of variables, dependent upon opera tion of selected traits which are anticipatory means to ends and which are in turn affected by psychic tendencies and experience. To the end of examining the question raised and testing hypothesis, the following appro ach was used. Two measures were obtained on the graduating class and on some members of the freshman class of a liberal arts college. The college selected isa state institution, predominantly Negro, where ad mittance of graduates of high schools of the state is mandatory though some screening is achieved through use of aptitude and subject-matter tests. Freshmen reported in this study were assumed competent of meeting scholastic requirements of the college. Drop-outs due to finance are relative ly few, due to work opportunities and financial aid arrangements. All of the subjects in the study are Negro. The instruments used were the California Personality Inventory and Harrower's Group Ror schach. The senior group consisted of 103 men and 86 women. The original freshman enrollment of this class approximated 600 students. Tradi tionally at this college, despite original intentions, two-thirds of the freshman group drop out prior to graduation with the smallest percentage of cases attributed to finance. Measures were obtained on the California Personality Inventory for 100 ran domly selected freshman men and 100 freshman women. It is assumed that the sample will include potential drop-outs and that trait differentials which relate to motivation may be revealed in compara tive examination of freshman and senior responses. Rorschach data were available on a smaller fresh man population including 56 men and 25 women.