Goal Structure Research Articles

Stressors and vulnerability during upper secondary school: subjective experiences of classroom climate and coping beliefs as predicting factors of school stress in Norway

The present longitudinal study was designed to scrutinize how adolescents perceive their life in upper secondary schools in general, and how central aspects of their perceived classroom climate predicted their coping beliefs and experience of school stress in particular. The participants were 1215 students in upper secondary schools (grades 2 and 3) from one county in Norway. The data were analysed by means of structural equation modelling, and the findings reveal gender differences that need further investigation in future research. Our study indicates that a performance-oriented goal structure and social support from peers and teachers seem to be a potential risk factor and/or protective factor when it comes to adolescents’ development of coping beliefs and experiences of school stress, especially among girls.

Dwell times showcase how goal structure informs preschoolers' analysis of unfolding motion patterns.

Using Hard et al.'s (2011) dwell-time paradigm, 85 preschoolers (aged 2.5-4.5; 43 female; primarily from white families) advanced at their own pace through one of three slideshows. All slideshows depicted an actor reaching toward, grasping, and retrieving a ball. However, motion patterns differed for one slideshow (straight-reach) relative to the other two (arcing-reaches), and one of the arcing-reach slideshows depicted a violation of typical goal-related motion. Preschoolers' knowledge of goal structure systematically modulated attention to event boundaries across slideshows despite surface differences, even when controlling for pixel change (an index of changes in motion). These findings showcase the value of the dwell time paradigm, and illuminate how children deploy attention as goal-related expectations shape their analysis of continuously unfolding activity.

Role of College Environment on Students’ Soft Skills: Achievement Goal Structure

The development of undergraduate students’ soft skills is crucial because their chances to satisfactorily deal with the demands of various environments and interlocutors increases with the development of their soft skills. Based on the achievement goal theory, this study aimed to examine the role of the school environment in fostering students’ soft skills. Structural equation modeling was conducted to examine the relationships between five environmental factors—learning task, teacher support, extracurricular activities, interaction with teachers and peers, and soft skills. These findings positively predicted soft skills in college environments with development and competence growth, for both in-class and out-of-class contexts. In addition, the findings revealed that the most effective methods to facilitate students’ soft skills development included supporting extracurricular activities, engaging students in high-order learning tasks, facilitating peer learning, and providing structured guidance.

Barriers towards Resilient Performance among Public Critical Infrastructure Organizations: The Refugee Influx Case of 2015 in Sweden

During the autumn of 2015, Europe experienced a sharp increase in refugee influx, and many refugees arrived in the European Øresund Region. Refugees travelled through Denmark and over the Øresund Bridge, arriving in the third largest city in Sweden, Malmö. Private, public and voluntary organizations in Malmö had to change the way they worked to meet the new entry demands. Flexible adaptations to changing circumstances can be described as resilient performance and are supported or hindered by societal and organizational drivers and barriers. Qualitative interview data from Swedish organizations managing the refugee reception in Malmö were analyzed through the theoretical lens of Resilience Engineering (RE). The analysis results showed that necessary adaptations were not supported by the managerial design of the responsible public organizations. The analysis also showed that preconditions created from societal steering hinders value responsiveness at the public management level, i.e., the public management level has barriers towards becoming familiar with the organization’s value structures. Familiarity with the system value and goal structure is essential for an efficient prioritizing of conflicting goals, which is why it is suggested that this aspect be explicitly included in RE principles.

Student perceptions of a guided inquiry approach to a service-taught ordinary differential equations course

ABSTRACT This paper reports on data obtained during semi-structured interviews with students who had recently experienced a guided inquiry approach to learning ordinary differential equations (ODEs) in a service-taught module. Previous research identified the strengths and weaknesses of similar cohorts of students. The results from that research informed the design of an intervention (15 guided inquiry tutorials) which sought to improve the outcomes for students taking a subsequent version of the module. This paper reports on the data gathered during interviews with these students that describe their perceptions of the guided inquiry approach used. The students noticed the change in emphasis toward conceptual understanding that the intervention was trying to instil. They cited the change in questioning style most frequently as being where they saw this change, but also noted the prevalence of group work and change in interaction pattern as keys to its success. Thus, by probing students’ opinions in this way, we find validation for a guided inquiry approach to teaching ordinary differential equations in third level that emphasizes active learning and lateral interactions among students. The students’ personal goal orientation and the goal structure of the learning environment are also discussed.

Professionalization of Political Campaigns: Roadmap for the Analysis

Political parties in developed democracies have undergone deep inner transformation processes brought about by changes in voting behaviour of their electorates, fragmentation of media landscape, and technological revolution. Such changes have caused that the topic of political party transformation has become a central focus of current political science research. However, only a few works have addressed specific aspects of these far-reaching transformations, that is the process of modernisation and professionalization of political campaigns. Specifically, the recent research on professionalization of electoral campaigns has focused primarily on measurement of the index of professionalization, which is suitable for comparative research. Yet deep understanding of the process itself has been still absent, and therefore, this research paper aspires to cover this gap. Main goal of this paper is to offer a roadmap for analysis of professionalization of electoral campaigns with focus on qualitative studies. It represents a causal mechanism of professionalization of electoral campaigns, including the identification of internal and external factors and possible framework conditions that contribute to it (i.e. professionalization), through the process of tracing method (i.e. the causal mechanism is built on the basis of the process tracing method). Here, external factors are defined as environmental conditions, which include declining voter turnout, declining party identification, increasing electoral volatility, and declining interest in political party membership. Although their effect is considered a long-term one, the causal mechanism assumes their influence on the triggering of other processes: external shock (electoral win or loss) and internal shock (change of leader). In the next part of the causal mechanism, subsequent internal processes are expected in the form of changes to the primary goal and organizational structure of parties. Unlike previously published works on this topic, this paper suggests that not only the specific internal and external factors or amount of invested financial resources affect the degree of professionalization, but also the party's market orientation and the level of its internal discipline.

Hierarchy of customer goals: conceptual framework and new insights

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to: (1) better understand the structure (hierarchy) of customer goals providing conceptual clarity; and (2) propose a hierarchy of customer goals conceptual framework that explicates how healthcare customer goals are linked to drivers and outcomes, thus building theory and informing practice.Design/methodology/approachThe research draws on 21 in-depth interviews of patients with a chronic disease. Drawing principally on construal-level theory and using manual thematic analysis and Leximancer, this article provides new insights into customer goals.FindingsIn a first, the authors identify a two-dimensional structure for each of the three main goal types, which previously had been viewed as unidimensional. The authors develop a conceptual framework linking drivers of goal setting (promotion/prevention focus world view and perceived role) with goal type (life goals, focal goals and action plan goals and their respective subgoals) and outcomes (four forms of subjective well-being). Visual concept maps illustrate the relative importance of certain health-related goals over others.Research limitations/implicationsThe usefulness of the authors’ conceptual framework is demonstrated through the application of their framework to goal setting among healthcare customers, showing links between the structure of goals (life goals, focal goals and action plan goals) to drivers (promotion/prevention focus world view and perceived role) and outcomes (subjective well-being) and the framework's potential application to other service settings.Originality/valueThis study contributes to healthcare marketing and service management literature by providing new insights into goal setting and proposing a novel hierarchy of customer goals conceptual framework linking drivers, goal types and outcomes.

IMPLEMENTING “SUSTAINABILITY-BY-DESIGN” APPROACH IN ORGANIZATIONS BY USING AN EXTENDED RISK INDICATORS SYSTEM FOR MAKING STRATEGIC DECISIONS

The purpose of this article is to identify possible approaches to the development of the “sustainability-by-design” process, which consists in synchronizing the organization's strategy with the trends of sustainable development. For this purpose, a process of “sustainability-by-design” is proposed on the basis of the “safety-by-design” process applied in practice. As a key link in the process, it is proposed to use a system of sustainability indicators, supplemented by indicators of risk and resilience. To strengthen the adaptive capacity of companies in the field of sustainable development, the process of building “sustainability-by-design” is complemented by the inclusion of democratic procedures through structured stakeholder participation. As a result, the proposed process combines a rigid structure of values and goals with a “soft setup” in the form of democratic procedures. This will allow companies not only to reduce the uncertainties inherent to the pacing problem, but also to create an environment for the promotion of the most effective alternatives to the development of companies in the field of sustainability.

The Austronesian Game Taxonomy: A cross-cultural dataset of historical games

Humans in most cultures around the world play rule-based games, yet research on the content and structure of these games is limited. Previous studies investigating rule-based games across cultures have either focused on a small handful of cultures, thus limiting the generalizability of findings, or used cross-cultural databases from which the raw data are not accessible, thus limiting the transparency, applicability, and replicability of research findings. Furthermore, games have long been defined as competitive interactions, thereby blinding researchers to the cross-cultural variation in the cooperativeness of rule-based games. The current dataset provides ethnographic, historic information on games played in cultural groups in the Austronesian language family. These game descriptions (Ngames = 907) are available and codeable for researchers interested in games. We also develop a unique typology of the cooperativeness of the goal structure of games and apply this typology to the dataset. Researchers are encouraged to use this dataset to examine cross-cultural variation in the cooperativeness of games and further our understanding of human cultural behaviour on a larger scale.

The complexity of stakeholder influence on MaaS: A study on multi-stakeholder perspectives in Shenzhen self-driving mini-bus case

Emerging technologies are changing our preferences for transportation solutions, which focus on service efficiency, safety, and sustainability. Mobility as a service (MaaS) is a user-oriented transportation solution that integrates both public and private operators into the same platform. The implementation of MaaS aims to simplify users’ booking procedures and increase the usability of various kinds of transportation resources. However, the integration of a myriad of transportation subsystems raises interpretation challenges from associated multi-stakeholder and subsystems. To overcome these challenges, the authors have involved different stakeholders from related subsystems to reveal concerns. This study aims to analyse a novel public transportation system - the self-driving mini-bus service in Shenzhen. The result shows that system characteristics and stakeholder concerns can be established using an Action, Factor and Goal structure. Stakeholders involved described their perceptions of self-driving bus integration in MaaS. The description could be used by analysts to uncover integration gaps further and could be updated by involving more stakeholders according to project developments. This study highlights the complexity of self-driving mini-buses integration challenges in MaaS from a stakeholder perspective, which provides learnings to advance the MaaS adoption in the future.

The methodological basis and the technique for objectifying logical results of systems analysis in production sphere

Significant weight of subjective models used in the systems analysis is discussed. It reduces degree of correctness (coherence and completeness) of planning and managerial decisions as results of the systems analysis in the production sphere and causes costs of production in the decisions realization. That is why a methodological basis for decision-makers objectifying the systems analysis results is so urgent. It is based on the original system-goal approach, logical and linguistic models of goals, semantic model of structure of goals and semiotic model of reasoning about goals. Three main tasks for objectifying the results of systems analysis are set. Schemes, the main procedures, instructions and examples for the task solution are given.

Relationship of Classroom Goal Structures to Chinese Miao and Han Students’ Goal Orientations and Mathematics Achievement

This study examines the relationship between classroom goal structures, student goal orientations, and mathematics achievement in China and compare the pattern of relationship between Chinese Miao and Han students. Data on 532 Chinese students (including 211 Han and 321 Miao students) were analyzed using structural equation models. The results of this study generally support the ethnic similarities between the Miao and Han groups. For both samples, mastery orientation positively predicted mathematics achievement, while performance-approach and performance-avoidance orientations had non-significant relationship with mathematics achievement. Regarding classroom goal structure, mastery goal structure was a positive predictor of mastery goal orientation and mathematics achievement, while performance goal structure positively linked to performance-approach and performance-avoidance goal orientations. Despite the similarities, performance goal structure had positive association with mastery goal orientation among Han students, but not among Miao students. The findings extend our understanding of how classroom goal structures relate to Chinese students’ achievement motivation and mathematics achievement and reveal cross-ethnic similarities and differences in the relationship. The possible reasons of the results and directions for future research are discussed.

Self-regulated learning by writing learning protocols: Do goal structures matter?

Having students write learning protocols is an established follow-up task to course work that elicits processes of self-regulated learning. To date, a wealth of research has focused on optimizing the learning protocol task itself by integrating instructional support measures such as prompts. By contrast, research that focuses on optimizing the context in which learning protocol writing is embedded is widely missing. In the present study, we approached this gap by focusing on the role of the contextual factor goal structure. Specifically, in an experiment with N = 166 high school students we tested whether embedding the learning protocol task in a mastery goal structure would be more beneficial than embedding it in a performance goal structure. The mastery goal structure fostered metacognitive processes, learning outcomes, and learning efficiency. We conclude that considering contextual factors such as the goal structure is crucial for understanding and optimizing the effects of learning protocols.

Framing Violence: Rhetoric and Goal Structures of Shia and Salafi Terrorist Organizations

ABSTRACT Though existing research on religiously motivated terrorism has examined the characteristics of groups across religious traditions, very few have disaggregated their studies to the level of sect. Sectarian differences in conceptualizing world views and group membership may have a substantial impact on the framing rhetoric and behaviors of religiously motivated terrorist groups. This study investigates whether Islamist terrorist groups belonging to different sects display different organizational goals and mobilization and recruitment strategies. This study employs a text analysis of over 400 news articles for 40 Salafi and Shia organizations to analyze rhetorical patterns in diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames. The results suggest that the rhetoric, goal structures, and collective action frames terrorist groups employ differ systematically based on sect affiliation. These results speak to the importance of ideology and religious doctrine in influencing the threats, the recommended actions, and the motivational methods of terrorist organizations. Though these ideologies do not necessarily spark violence, they do drive variation in goal structures of those groups who use violence to affect political change.

Classroom Social Goal Structure and Children’s Autonomous Prosocial Behavior Toward Their Classmates:

本研究では，学級の社会的目標構造と子どもの自律的な向社会的行動や自律的ではない向社会的行動との関連について，小学生と中学生の学校段階差を検討した。なお，向社会的行動の対象をクラスメイトに限定し，検討を行った。多母集団同時分析の結果，小中学生共に，学級での思いやりや互恵性の強調された目標を認知することと，自律的な向社会的行動との関連が確認された。一方で，学級での規律や秩序の強調された目標を認知することは自律的ではない向社会的行動と関連していることが確認された。このことから，向社会的行動の生起には学級での思いやりを強調することと規律を強調することが共に有効であろうが，特に学級での思いやりを強調する指導によって子どもの自律的な向社会的行動を予測し得ることが示唆された。また，横断的検討ではあるものの，学級の向社会的目標構造と子どもの自律的な向社会的行動との関連に学校段階差が確認されたことから，学級での向社会的目標を強調する教師の指導が自律性支援としての性質を持つ可能性を指摘した。最後に，本研究の限界と今後の課題についてまとめた。

Correction to: Classroom goal structures and communication style: the role of teacher immediacy and relevance-making in students’ perceptions of the classroom”

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-021-09628-9

Bridging contextual and individual factors of academic achievement: a multi-level analysis of diversity in the transition to higher education

The transition to higher education has been extensively documented in the literature. In this line, many individual variables were identified as strong predictors of academic achievement. Yet, this literature suffers from one main limitation; contextual factors have often been left out of the investigation. The majority of studies have tested the impact of individual characteristics assuming that the effects are the same in different programs. However, differences between institutions or programs could result in specific learning contexts leading to different adjustment processes. As an attempt to overcome this limitation, the current study has investigated the impact of both individual and contextual factors on academic achievement through a multifactorial multilevel analysis. The analyses were carried out on 1,173 freshmen from 21 study programs. Results highlighted that 15% of variation in students’ achievement was found between programs. Aspects of curriculum organization that contributed to academic achievement were gender ratio, opportunities given for practice and class size. Besides, seven individual factors were also predictive of academic achievement in the multifactorial approach: past performance, socioeconomic status, self-efficacy beliefs, value, mastery goal structure, study time and paid job. Finally, significant random effects were identified for peer support, course value, attendance and external engagement (i.e. commitment in extra-academic activities). The implications and limitations of this study are discussed. By connecting individual and contextual predictors of academic achievement this study intends to endorse a frontline approach regarding the transition to higher education.

VERDICT: A Language and Framework for Engineering Cyber Resilient and Safe System

The ever-increasing complexity of cyber-physical systems is driving the need for assurance of critical infrastructure and embedded systems. However, traditional methods to secure cyber-physical systems—e.g., using cyber best practices, adapting mechanisms from information technology systems, and penetration testing followed by patching—are becoming ineffective. This paper describes, in detail, Verification Evidence and Resilient Design In anticipation of Cybersecurity Threats (VERDICT), a language and framework to address cyber resiliency. When we use the term resiliency, we mean hardening a system such that it anticipates and withstands attacks. VERDICT analyzes a system in the face of cyber threats and recommends design improvements that can be applied early in the system engineering process. This is done in two steps: (1) Analyzing at the system architectural level, with respect to cyber and safety requirements and (2) by analyzing at the component behavioral level, with respect to a set of cyber-resiliency properties. The framework consists of three parts: (1) Model-Based Architectural Analysis and Synthesis (MBAAS); (2) Assurance Case Fragments Generation (ACFG); and (3) Cyber Resiliency Verifier (CRV). The VERDICT language is an Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) annex for modeling the safety and security aspects of a system’s architecture. MBAAS performs probabilistic analyses, suggests defenses to mitigate attacks, and generates attack-defense trees and fault trees as evidence of resiliency and safety. It can also synthesize optimal defense solutions—with respect to implementation costs. In addition, ACFG assembles MBAAS evidence into goal structuring notation for certification purposes. CRV analyzes behavioral aspects of the system (i.e., the design model)—modeled using the Assume-Guarantee Reasoning Environment (AGREE) annex and checked against cyber resiliency properties using the Kind 2 model checker. When a property is proved or disproved, a minimal set of vital system components responsible for the proof/disproof are identified. CRV also provides rich and localized diagnostics so the user can quickly identify problems and fix the design model. This paper describes the VERDICT language and each part of the framework in detail and includes a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of VERDICT—in this case, a delivery drone.

Science with Duplo: Multilevel goal management in preschoolers’ toy house constructions

Executing goal-directed action sequences is fundamental to our behavior. Planning and controlling these action sequences improves greatly over the preschool years. In this study, we examined preschoolers’ ability to plan action sequences. A total of 69 3- to 5-year-olds were assessed on an action sequence planning task with a hierarchical goal structure and on several executive function tasks. Planning abilities improved with age. Improvements in inhibition were related to avoidance of actions irrelevant to the goal hierarchy. Updating skill appears to be associated with executing actions relevant to different subgoals. Using optical motion capture, we showed that children who followed the subgoals displayed less movement with their nonreaching hand within a subgoal. This effect was enhanced in children with better inhibitory skills, suggesting that such skills allow greater focus on executing the current subgoal. Thus, we provide evidence that structuring of subgoals in action sequence planning emerges during the preschool years and that improvements in performance in action sequence planning are related to executive functions.

Single-Event Transient Case Study for System-Level Radiation Effects Analysis

Analog single-event transient (SET) results are analyzed for two different applications within one system architecture. Application-specific analyses are presented on the MAX4595 commercial device using single-event effects criticality and goal structuring notation (GSN).