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How students' achievement goals shape their beliefs about effective teaching: a 'build-a-professor' study
Corwin Senko1, Kimberly Belmonte, Anastasyia Yakhkind
1State University of New York-New Paltz, New York 12561, USA. senkoc@newpaltz.edu
The British Journal of Educational Psychology
|August 14, 2012
Summary
Student academic goals shape their ideal instructor. Those with mastery goals prefer intellectually challenging professors, while performance-focused students seek clear instruction and success cues.
Area of Science:
- Educational Psychology
- Higher Education Studies
Background:
- Student perceptions of essential instructor qualities vary.
- This study investigates the link between instructor qualities and students' academic achievement goals.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test if students with mastery goals prefer intellectually stimulating instructors.
- To test if students with performance goals prefer clear, success-oriented instructors.
Main Methods:
- 157 undergraduate students participated.
- Students hypothetically designed their ideal professor by selecting from nine instructor qualities, forcing trade-offs between them.
Main Results:
- Student achievement goals aligned with their preferred instructor qualities.
- Mastery goals correlated with valuing intellectual challenge and topic expertise.
- Performance goals correlated with valuing clear presentation and success cues.
Conclusions:
- Findings support theories on how achievement goals influence student learning agendas.
- Different goals lead to distinct learning experiences based on instructor preferences.
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