Assignment Writing Servicehttp://StudyHub.vip/Achievement-Goal-Theory--A-Framework-Fo

1. Session S1C
978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC
40th
ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1C-1
Achievement Goal Theory: A Framework for
Implementing Group Work and Open-Ended
Problem Solving
Casey Canfield and Yevgeniya V. Zastavker
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, casey.canfield@students.olin.edu, yevgeniya.zastavker@olin.edu
Abstract - In educational psychology, achievement goal
theory (AGT) has emerged as a useful framework for
understanding student motivation and performance.
This paper uses AGT to examine the effects of
curriculum and pedagogy on student and instructor goal
orientations in mathematics, physics, and engineering
courses in a first-year engineering program. The
following questions guide our analysis: (a) How do the
existing curricula and pedagogies affect a performance
goal orientation development? (b) In which ways do the
existing curricula and pedagogies encourage a
development of mastery goal orientation? The results of
this qualitative study indicate: (1) contention between the
instructors’ goals and students’ experiences of group
work and open-ended learning experiences; (2) the
negative impact of time pressure on successfully
implementing mastery goal-oriented teaching strategies;
(3) students’ maintenance of a performance goal
orientation with high emphasis on grades rather than
learning and engagement in work avoidance strategies to
minimize work time, despite instructors’ efforts to
encourage a mastery goal orientation; (4) dependence of
student goal orientation on assessment mechanisms
(grades) and perceived course “usefulness”. It is argued
that AGT may help to frame positive changes in
curricula and pedagogy to benefit overall student
learning.
Index Terms - Achievement goal theory, Group work,
Motivation, Open-ended problem solving
BACKGROUND
Achievement goal theory (AGT), discussed predominantly
in the educational psychology literature, has emerged as the
primary theoretical framework for understanding motivation
to learn [1]. In this context, learning goals are understood as
dynamic states determined by some combination of students’
innate characteristics and contextual factors. Achievement
goals include the full range from specific target goals such
as “I want to get an A in this class” to more long-term goals
such as “I want to be an engineer”. These goals dictate
student perceptions and attitudes toward academic
performance, the role of failure, the importance of effort,
and individual competence [2].
AGT is often separated into two independent goal
orientations: mastery and performance. A mastery goal
orientation is characterized by a desire for self-improvement
and an emphasis on learning. Students with this goal
orientation discover intrinsic satisfaction from solving
challenging problems.
On the other hand, students with a performance goal
orientation are motivated by a desire for extrinsic approval,
i.e., performing well compared to others and surpassing
tangible performance goals. Typically, the performance goal
orientations are further divided into:
• Approach-performance strategies typical of students
who are motivated to perform well compared to others;
and
• Avoid-performance strategies used by students who are
motivated to not do badly compared to others.
In some cases, a third goal orientation called work-
avoidance is used to describe students who seek to minimize
work while maximizing performance as measured by grades
[1]-[4].
Several studies have identified a positive correlation
between a mastery goal orientation and student learning
outcomes. In these studies, the students used learning
strategies to enhance conceptual understanding and
persevere in challenging tasks. These students also reported
high levels of classroom engagement [1].
In comparison, conflicting data is reported about the
effect of performance goal orientation on students’ learning
outcomes. While an avoid-performance goal orientation has
been shown to almost always be associated with negative
learning outcomes, an approach-performance goal
orientation has been positively correlated to improved
student performance [2].
Recent literature stresses the importance of describing
goal orientations as independent entities influencing student
motivation individually or in a combination with each other.
As such, AGT scholars propose that multiple goal
orientations may be employed by students simultaneously
within the same classroom environment. Although faculty
efforts to promote a mastery goal orientation may not
diminish the presence of performance goal orientations in a
particular classroom, it is argued that the two may work
symbiotically to enhance student learning. Hence, faculty
encouragement of a particular goal orientation, such as
mastery, may be desirable whether or not the overall

2. Session S1C
978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC
40th
ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1C-2
curriculum and other academic structures promote other goal
orientation development [3].
Roebken (2007) found that students with a mixture of
performance and mastery goal orientations had the highest
performance as measured by grades [3]. Similarly, Malka
and Covington (2004) found evidence that target
achievement goals, such as a desire for a high grade, may
correlate with student learning outcomes and behavioral
patterns that go beyond simple performance orientation. In
some cases, a student may be driven by a mastery goal
orientation and see a high grade as merely a stepping-stone
to understanding [4].
Most research indicates that classroom structures, such
as learning scaffolding and pedagogies employed by
instructors, play an important role in determining the
students’ goal orientations [1]-[8]. Faculty can encourage a
mastery goal orientation by emphasizing student autonomy
and ownership of the learning process, assigning
appropriately challenging projects, and stressing learning
over performance. However, due to intrinsic factors, such as
parental involvement in student education and students’
previous learning experiences, there may still be a wide
range of classroom goal structures practiced by students
within the same classroom [5].
Understanding motivational theory is particularly
relevant for engineering education where motivation and
retention are high priorities, particularly in the first-year
courses that serve as a “gateway” to engineering. In
analyzing the results of a web-based survey, Roebken (2007)
found that engineering students were more likely to pursue a
combination of mastery and performance orientation.
Slightly less likely for engineering students were a
combination of work avoidance-performance orientation and
a pure mastery orientation [3].
Encouragement of a particular goal orientation has been
a subject of much discussion in the engineering education
community. Many engineering curricula are moving towards
more innovative pedagogies such as project-based learning
(PjBL). This pedagogy is particularly suited for
encouragement of a mastery goal orientation if implemented
well [6]. In a study focusing on engineering educators, Turns
et. al. (2009) found that most faculty do take student
motivation into account when making instructional
decisions. However, the study determined that faculty find it
difficult to reconcile their desire to demonstrate the real-
world relevance of their course content, one of the factors in
affecting student motivation, with the high level of technical
complexities, often above students’ levels of comprehension,
which the authentic open-ended problems provide [7].
Using AGT as a theoretical framework, this paper
explores how faculty and students discuss motivation in a
first-year engineering curriculum. The following questions
guide our analysis:
• How do the existing curricula and pedagogies affect a
performance goal orientation development?
• In which ways do the existing curricula and pedagogies
encourage a development of mastery goal orientation?
This paper is structured around two key pedagogical
methods often employed in a project-based learning (PjBL)
environment: group work and open-ended problem-solving.
The role of grades and perceived course “usefulness” in
learning and motivation are also discussed.
METHODS
Part of a larger, mixed-methods investigation at three
engineering institutions, this paper focuses on one of the
institutions, identified here as Eastern Technical University
(ETU). This case study examines ETU’s first-year
mechanical engineering curriculum, during which students
typically take Mechanics (ETU Physics), Calculus (ETU
Math), Introduction to Manufacturing (ETU Engineering),
and/or Introduction to CAD (ETU Design). Each course
includes three components: lecture, recitation, and
laboratory. ETU’s curriculum generally identifies lectures as
the main venue through which to impart content knowledge
while the recitation sessions are primarily used as an
opportunity to engage with the material, ask questions, and
participate in group work exercises. The laboratories are
generally thought to serve as vehicles for specific technical
skill development and attempt to allow students
opportunities to find application for the abstract principles
learned in the other portions of the class. PjBL is mostly
employed in ETU’s Engineering and Design courses, while
the Physics course exhibits some components of PjBL and
Mathematics utilizes very little PjBL strategies.
A semi-structured, open-ended, in-depth interview
protocol was employed with eleven students and six faculty.
“Purposive” sampling was employed and the students
interviewed were “matched” to those selected in other sites
in terms of gender, major, and performance [9]. Three of the
interviewed students and two faculty were female. Using
grounded theory, the data were coded and narrative
summaries were written based upon emergent themes [10].
Validity and reliability were ensured through a group
process of codebook development and peer debriefing. Inter-
coder reliability was at least 80% among three coders [11].
Further analysis included exploration and comparison of
patterns within and among the identified themes.
DISCUSSION
Our discussion is organized around four major themes
identified through the analysis of the qualitative data. The
themes are (1) group work; (2) open-ended problem solving;
(3) grading as an assessment; and (4) the role of perceived
course “usefulness”.
I. Group Work
The value of group activities in the classroom has been
indicated by all interviewed faculty to lie primarily in
allowing students to consider different perspectives and
practice communication skills. This reasoning is aligned
with a faculty desire to encourage a mastery goal orientation
in the classroom and enhance conceptual understanding.

3. Session S1C
978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC
40th
ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1C-3
As the mathematics laboratory instructor explains,
ensuring that students verbalize their learning is key to
understanding: “I think [group work] is of a huge benefit to
the [students] because they actually talk to each other about
the concept. Verbalizing the concept is huge” (Math
Faculty, Interview 14, 10/12/07).
Another distinct role that faculty perceive group work
activities to play is in ‘learning by teaching’. In fact,
students seem to be encouraged to ask each other for help
before approaching instructors. Both faculty and students
feel that this is an important part of learning. As one male
student explains, “Mostly I think it’s hearing other people’s
ideas that basically reinforce it in your mind […] also the
best way to learn is to teach […] if you help someone with
something else then it helps you reinforce it in your own
mind” (Student, Interview 11, 4/25/08). This thinking is very
much in line with encouraging a mastery goal orientation.
By promoting a collaborative environment, rather than a
competitive one, faculty can encourage students to focus on
understanding rather than out-performing peers. If, as in this
case, students internalize this message, they can take
advantage of all opportunities to enhance understanding.
Similarly, students explain that group work overall
improves their learning experience despite concerns
regarding academic performance. As one female student
explains, group work improves her enjoyment of the course
and enhances her learning: “I actually enjoyed myself
tremendously. […] we would get together and we would just
go back and forth with ideas […] then sometimes we’d
disagree, […] and we just end up learning a lot more than if
you worked by yourself because you’re just arguing points
and you have to know your material in order to argue these
points” (Student, Interview 6, 3/28/08). This student’s
experience of the group work activity also seems to indicate
a mastery goal orientation. She appreciates the value of
challenging problems because she intrinsically enjoys
working with others to solve them.
However, not all students seem to develop this
perspective. Many students feel that group work is beneficial
because it makes the work easier. As a male student
explains, “I liked [group work] because […] it was easier
[…] because if I didn’t get it, there were three people who
were next to me. One of them might get it, so I liked that.
Instead of me challenging myself and getting all the four
problems myself, […] there were four people working on it,
so it makes it really easier” (Student, Interview 2,
11/20/07). This perspective is indicative of a work avoidance
goal orientation. While this student seems to believe he
could challenge himself to do all the problems, he would
rather not, all the while receiving full credit for them.
One of the physics recitation instructors finds that
students implement distinctly different group work
strategies: while some students use the ‘divide-and-conquer’
method, others emphasize collaboration and discussion: “I
have noticed a couple of groups […] and I do know what
they’re doing. Mainly, they decided, ‘We will not sit around
and try to decide [together] how to do problem one and
problem two. We will split, we will each sit down and try to
do one of the problems,[…] and then we will look at what
we’ve done and copy it all together’. And so it’s actually
[…] industrial group work with different people having
different tasks. […] [On the other hand,] the group of
women appears to sit around in [a] circle and talk to each
other. […] Certainly on the homework grades the women
also seem to be doing quite well” (Physics Faculty,
Interview 18, 9/24/07). While the ‘divide-and-conquer’
method establishes more of a work avoidance goal
orientation, the collaboration method encourages a mastery
goal orientation. Both strategies may be implemented
successfully to improve academic performance. On average,
gendered patterns were identified in student group work
behavior. For example, groups tended to be single-sex and,
as evidenced above, the group work strategies, on the
average vary between all-men and all-women groups with
latter usually employing a collaborative environment that
encourages mastery goal orientation. However, some
students seem reluctant to implement effective group work
strategies due to time and performance concerns. As one
physics professor explains, “You have students who just
[are] on task and may not be as committed to wanting to
understand [the material] because they feel pressured with
the time” (Physics Faculty, Interview 12, 9/24/07). When
students only have the allotted class time to work on a lab or
project, there is pressure to develop more of a performance
goal orientation. These concerns may negatively impact
faculty efforts to encourage mastery student goal
orientations in the classroom creating a contention between
faculty intentions and student conscious and subconscious
goal orientations as well as classroom experiences.
II. Student Autonomy and Open-Ended Experiences
Despite the structured nature of most of the courses in this
study, a few open-ended elements as well as student
autonomy have nevertheless been discussed in both student
and faculty interviews.
In the ETU Engineering course, the lab instructor
encourages autonomy by creating opportunities for students
to take initiative in their learning. He feels that the students
are fully capable of teaching themselves: “I don’t want to
teach [students] too much because they probably already
know more than I do in some things. So I’m happy to have
them read the manual and teach me. […] And so, these are
freshmen two weeks after they had ever seen a machine tool
in the first place, [who] are reading the manual and figuring
stuff out and three weeks later they taught me how to use one
part of the machine” (Engineering Faculty, Interview 17,
10/20/07).This pedagogy clearly places the instructor in the
role of a guide in the classroom, rather than the keeper of
knowledge. This is useful for developing a mastery goal
orientation since students are given autonomy and clear
responsibilities for their own learning.
As with group work, many faculty are concerned that
there is not enough time to adequately execute open-ended
projects, both in terms of implementation and preparation.

4. Session S1C
978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC
40th
ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1C-4
As the mathematics laboratory instructor explains, there is
one professor who had tried to implement an open-ended
project but found that students had trouble transitioning from
highly structured, cookie-cutter high school learning
environment: “[This mathematics instructor] could have had
[the students for] two terms. He could have taught them
[first] to relax, to go with it. ‘Don’t worry about the grey
area’. But he would have needed that first term to teach
them to do that because…these kids… that isn’t their
background” (Math Faculty, Interview 14, 10/12/07). Most
faculty find this difficult transition from structured to open-
ended learning to be a major stumbling block. While faculty
value open-ended problem solving, they are only able to
successfully implement a few elements of it in the
curriculum. Without adequate time to provide students with
the necessary skills to succeed in open-ended environment,
faculty feel uncomfortable and often resistant to
implementing the pedagogy.
In addition, faculty need more time to create the
environment and structure for both open-ended and
autonomous experiences. Even faculty with motivation and
ideas for how to implement such experiences in the
curriculum express concern about their inability to do so due
to time limitations: “You could design the laboratory
experiments so that they can pick some of the input variables
for the laboratory experiment and then they can have
different lab groups do different experiments and then
collaborate on the report, for example [...]. But again, it’s
having time to prepare the instructions for that is the real
problem” (Engineering Faculty, Interview 17, 10/20/07).
Clearly, the practical realities of time are a major barrier to
implementing open-ended and autonomous learning
experiences for students, even for the most motivated
faculty. On the other hand, students have mixed feelings
regarding the value of these experiences.
One female student explains her enjoyment of learning how
to use CAD software in ETU Design, “Having the freedom
of just working on it whenever you can, and having to go
through and use different aspects of geometry and
mathematics, and just being able to visualise what you want
to put on the computer before you can actually create it. I
like that, having that independence to try and figure out
‘how’,[…] trial and error versus someone just telling you
step by step what to do” (Student, Interview 1, 4/18/08).
However, while some students feel autonomous and open-
ended learning improves their ability to learn, others express
frustration with this learning environment. In fact, the same
student who shared her enjoyment of open-ended CAD
experience also explains her concern of being challenged
within certain limits: “I like to be challenged to a point
where I’m not stressed out and frustrated to the point where
I can’t be happy or have fun with it, but it’s not so easy that
it becomes unimportant to me” (Student, Interview 1,
4/18/08). It seems that the pedagogy allowing for open-
ended and autonomous learning is very useful in
encouraging student motivation and a mastery goal
orientation. By allowing students to teach themselves,
faculty actively support the development of students’ self-
efficacy and create an environment for increased knowledge
retention. However, even students that enjoy and thrive in
this environment can sometimes feel overwhelmed. As a
result, it is important for faculty to lay groundwork and
provide structure for students to feel capable of succeeding.
In fact, the classroom success is highly dependent on the
scaffolding provided by faculty to support student learning
in such environments.
To this end, when considering the balance between the
level of challenge and frustration within a project/class, there
is also a risk that students may choose to not challenge
themselves adequately. For example, in the ETU Design
course many students describe the importance of choosing
projects of medium difficulty, “If I choose a really easy one
then I won’t really learn anything. If I choose the hard one
then it’s going to be way too hard. […] I already have a lot
of other stuff to do, so I want to take the hard one [and] if I
had more time I wouldn’t mind taking it” (Student, Interview
2, 11/20/07).
III. Role of Grades
While students are motivated to learn, as expected in a
mastery goal orientation, they balance that desire with a
need to ‘succeed’, often defined by grades. This fear of
failure and desire to limit workload is much more
representative of a work avoidance/performance goal
orientation. As a result faculty attempts to encourage
students to take risks and learn from failure may be
undermined. As one physics professor explains, “I think
there [are] mixed feelings. My sense is that some [students]
are a little worried in the beginning because, you know,
‘How is my grade going to be determined?’… …while others
might say ‘That’s great’” (Physics Faculty, Interview 12,
9/24/07). While many students enjoy working in groups,
performing open-ended problem solving, and/or being given
control of their education, those same students are often also
concerned about academic performance as measured by
grades.
Despite this, our data also indicates that when able to
connect course goals to personal goals, students seem to be
more intrinsically motivated. This is in distinct contrast to
seeking external approval as is typical of a performance goal
orientation. As one student explains, he is very motivated to
learn in his ETU Engineering course because it is relevant to
his interests in robotics: “I wanted to do as best as I could
and learn as much as I could because I knew that
manufacturing and computer-aided design is going to be a
big part in robotics engineering” (Student, Interview 10,
11/16/07). This attitude may be capitalized on with an open-
ended problem solving and/or autonomous learning
environments.
Some students seem to conflate conceptual
understanding with high grades, which may not be
correlated. A fear of failure encourages a performance goal
orientation. For example, one female student is very
concerned about grades because she sees them as

5. Session S1C
978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC
40th
ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1C-5
quantifying her understanding: “I’ve always struggled with
math, not in the fact that I get bad grades, it just doesn’t
come to me that easy so I have to take extra time and study it
even more than other people and I end up doing well […] so
I guess it’s satisfying when I get a quiz and I get 100 on it,
I’ll be like oh wow! It just makes me so happy because I do
get it you know?” (Student, Interview 6, 3/28/08). It seems
that this student primarily measures her conceptual
understanding of mathematics in terms of grades. As a
result, a faculty member may have to make an effort to
emphasize the importance of risk-taking and learning from
failure when implementing pedagogies such as group work
and autonomous or open-ended problem solving to minimize
the fears of this type of student and encourage a mastery
goal orientation.
Interestingly, not all students place this same emphasis
on grades. Others do not correlate learning with good
grades: “[Grades] are pretty important but they’re not the
most important thing. I think it’s more important to get the
information out of the course rather than just strive for an A
and not know anything, if that makes sense” (Student,
Interview 11, 4/25/08). This attitude is more conducive to
encouraging a mastery goal orientation.
However, this disconnect between grades and
understanding implies that it is also possible for students to
receive high grades without fully understanding the material.
As the physics lab instructor explains, the use of software
and highly specific directions sometimes obscures faculty’s
ability to assess understanding: “A lot of the time I think the
students just follow the instructions and click the button
they’re told to do and write down the number they are told
to write down without fully understanding what it means”
(Physics Faculty, Interview 13, 9/24/07). This lack of
emphasis on understanding is problematic for encouraging a
mastery goal orientation. If students can succeed with little
conceptual understanding, then they may have little
incentive to steer away from a solely performance goal
orientation.
Finally, concerns about grades decrease enjoyment of
many classroom experiences. For example, this student
expresses the concerns about group work, “I don’t know if it
was because it was a grading thing but it would make us
nervous. I know if I had to do a tough problem but we
weren’t graded on it, I would have a blast but if it’s graded,
you have that pressure” (Student, Interview 6, 3/28/08).
Again, it seems that faculty efforts to encourage mastery
goal orientation may be undermined by grading as an
assessment strategy.
IV. Role of Perceived Course “Usefulness”
Similar to the physics laboratory, students have indicated
that the mathematics lab does little in steering them towards
a mastery goal orientation. Interestingly, in this case
students’ lack of motivation is attributed to a perceived
course “uselessness”.
The mathematics lab course is designed to teach
students how to use Maple, mathematical and analytical
software, while reinforcing concepts from the lecture and
recitation components of the course. However, even
compared to other classes primarily designed to teach
software, such as ETU Design, students feel that this lab is
“useless”: “It just seemed like we’re never going to use
Maple so it seemed kind of pointless. […] SolidWorks has a
more mechanical…it just seems more useful to me because
you can make things on it that you’d probably use in the real
world because I’ve already used SolidWorks for other
classes” (Student, Interview 11, 4/25/08). Having little
context for understanding the purpose of learning Maple,
students immediately degrade the entire course to “useless”
undermining faculty efforts for encouraging mastery goal
orientation.
In addition, the mathematics lab is not perceived as
stimulating or interesting. As a male student explains, “I
didn’t think it was that helpful really, because it seemed
more like you were doing what you knew would be the right
answer and what you would do to get 100 on the lab, rather
than actually understanding why you were doing it”
(Student, Interview 7, 4/25/08). This atmosphere is much
more conducive to a performance goal orientation rather
than a mastery goal orientation. In such a structured
environment, it is easy for students to go through the
exercise without gaining any conceptual understanding.
There is some validity in student concerns regarding the
role of the mathematics lab course in the curriculum. In an
attempt to belay student concerns about grades, the
mathematics lab was designed to be less challenging. As the
instructor explains, “The administration said ‘Make ‘em
happy’ so we make ‘em happy and that’s fine. […] Because
the freshman year is pretty tough […] and [in the] lab they
usually get As. So that helps [students] and it makes them
feel like they’re not failing everything because some of the
tests can be hard. But they usually end up learning
something despite it…” (Math Faculty, Interview 14,
10/12/07). While students may not realize that this was the
case, they still perceive the course to be “useless” and
“unhelpful”. The lack of challenge in the course does little to
improve student motivation. As a result, this course
encourages more of a performance goal orientation while
doing little to explicitly encourage conceptual understanding
and mastery orientation.
CONCLUSIONS
This study serves to illuminate elements of a curriculum that
need to be implemented carefully in light of achievement
goal theory. This work also highlights key stumbling blocks
to encouraging a mastery goal orientation. Numerous
research studies have shown that group work as well as
autonomous and open-ended learning enhance student
motivation and retention of knowledge [12-14]. However,
these pedagogies clearly must be implemented with care to
ensure that students receive the full benefits. We propose
that faculty may be better able to make pedagogical
decisions in the classroom through education on
achievement goal theory. By implementing teaching

6. Session S1C
978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC
40th
ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1C-6
practices in a way that emphasizes a mastery goal
orientation, faculty can enhance student learning and
understanding.
In group work, students may implement various
strategies to accomplish their goals. For example, they may
resort to a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy, which aims to
reduce workload and make the project easier, thereby
encouraging a work avoidance goal orientation.
Alternatively, students may use a collaborative strategy, and
discuss the problems together, establishing a mastery goal
orientation. If faculty want to encourage more of a mastery
goal orientation, it may be useful to require students to
discuss problems and teach each other to ‘verbalize’ their
learning. In addition, it may be helpful to eliminate grades
for group work to reduce the associated stress and place the
classroom emphasis on learning rather than performance.
In open-ended and autonomous learning environments,
students have mixed feelings regarding these pedagogies’
benefits. While enjoying challenge and working on
interesting projects that they have chosen, students feel there
is a limit to the reasonable difficulty of a project. There is a
clear tension between students’ desires to learn the content
and to succeed academically as measured by grades. For
example, students would choose a medium-difficulty project
rather than challenging themselves to choose a project that
could fail.
Among pedagogies particularly effective in the
development of mastery goal orientation, faculty in this
study use group work as well as autonomous and open-
ended learning environments. However, as faculty note,
limitations of time in the curriculum make it difficult to
successfully implement either of these pedagogies. Students
are more likely to engage in ‘divide-and-conquer’ group
work and feel frustrated by open-ended problem solving or
autonomous environments if they are not given the skills to
adopt more beneficial learning strategies. Faculty may find it
useful to provide some structure when implementing open-
ended problem solving so that students know where to go for
help. This may alleviate concerns regarding frustration with
large, open-ended projects. In order to create an environment
conducive to a mastery goal orientation, faculty need time to
transition students from structured, high school learning. In
addition, faculty need time to prepare new curricula with
these goals in mind. It may be necessary to address these
issues at the institutional level as well as in individual
classrooms. Two major stumbling blocks to encouraging a
mastery goal orientation are identified: grades and perceived
course “usefulness”. The emphasis on grades can be very
distracting when attempting to promote a mastery goal
orientation. While some students see grades as quantifying
their understanding, others see their understanding as a
completely separate matter. There are also those who realize
that they do not always need to understand the material to
achieve high grades. However, by making a specific effort to
evaluate students based on understanding rather than ability
to follow directions, faculty may be able to more easily
make this judgment.
In addition, students are very uninterested by courses
that they perceive to be “useless” and generally tend to put
less effort into such courses. In this case, pedagogies such as
group work do little to increase the motivation of students.
By addressing these motivational concerns at their root,
faculty may find that such pedagogies are implemented more
successfully.
In particular, by approaching these concerns from an
AGT perspective, faculty may be able to more successfully
pinpoint these stumbling blocks. If students are more
concerned with grades than understanding or if students feel
that a course is “useless”, group work and open-ended
problem-solving or autonomous learning environments will
not be able to be implemented successfully. Therefore, it is
important for faculty to take these factors into consideration
when making teaching decisions.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank National Science Foundation (HRD-
0624738). We would also like to thank Maria Ong of TERC
for her invaluable contributions during the stages of study
design, data collection, and initial analytical
conceptualization. We would also like to thank Elizabeth
Blair, Kathleen Farrell, and Rebecca Miller of Harvard
Graduate School of Education for their help in the initial
stages of instrument development and in data collection. We
would also like to send our thanks to Olin students Brittany
Strachota and Lillian Tseng for their assistance in coding
and analyzing the data as well as Julie Baca, Katarina Miller,
Geoffrey Pleiss, Jennifer Simonovich, and Emily Towers for
sharing their insights during the data analysis. Finally, we
would like to express our words of gratitude to the members
of our advisory board, Theda Daniels-Race of Louisiana
State University, Joni Falk of TERC, Yehudit Judy Dori of
Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), Susan Silbey of
MIT, and Barbara Whitten of Colorado College.
REFERENCES
[1] Meece , J. L., Anderman, E. M., and L. H. Anderman, “Classroom
Goal Structure, Student Motivation, and Academic Achievement”,
Annu. Rev. Psychol., 57, 2006, 487-503
[2] Pintrich, P. R., “An Achievement Goal Theory Perspective on Issues
in Motivation Terminology, Theory, and Research”, Contemporary
Educational Psychology, 25, 2000, 92-104.
[3] Roebken, H., “The Influence of Goal Orientation on Student
Satisfaction, Academic Engagement and Achievement”, Electronic
Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, 5, 3, 2007, 1696-
2095.
[4] Malka, A. and M. V. Covington, “Perceiving School Performance as
Instrumental to Future Goal Attainment: Effects on Graded
Performance”, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 2004, 60-
80.
[5] Urdan, T. and E. Schoenfelder, “Classroom Effects on Student
Motivation: Goal Structures, Social Relationships, and Competence
Beliefs”, Journal of School Psychology, 44, 2006, 331-349.
[6] Blumenfeld, P. C., Soloway, E., Marx, R. W., Krajcik, J.S., Guzdial,
M., and A. Palincsar, “Motivating Project-Based Learning: Sustaining

7. Session S1C
978-1-4244-6262-9/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE October 27 - 30, 2010, Washington, DC
40th
ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
S1C-7
the Doing, Supporting the Learning”, Educational Psychologist, 26,
3&4, 1991,369-398.
[7] Turns, J., Gygi, K. and M. J. Prince, “How Engineering Educators
Take Student Motivation into Account”, Proceedings of the Research
in Engineering Education Symposium, Palm Cove, 2009.
[8] Nicholls, J. G., Cobb, P., Wood, T., Yackel, E. and M. Patashnick,
“Assessing Students’ Theories of Success in Mathematics: Individual
and Classroom Differences”, Journal for Research in Mathematics
Education, 21, 2, 1990, 109-122.
[9] Maxwell, J.A., Qualitative research design: An interactive approach.
Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2005.
[10] Glaser, B.G. and Strauss, A.L. The Discovery of Grounded Theory:
Strategies for Qualitative Research, Aldine Transactions, 1967.
[11] Private conversations with Dr. Carroll Seron, professor of
Criminology, Law and Society at University of California, Irvine, in
which the process of multi-coder team performance and validity of the
data with 80% inter-coder reliability was discussed and confirmed.
[12] Prince, M., “Does Active Learning Work? A Review of the
Research”, Journal of Engineering Education, 93, 3, 2004, 223-246.
[13] Truax, D. D., “Restructuring the Undergraduate Laboratory
Instructional Process”, J. Profl. Issues in Engrg. Educ. And Pract.,
133, 3, 2007, 192-198.
[14] Ingerman, A., Berge, M. and S. Booth, “Physics group work in a
phenomonographic perspective – learning dynamics as the experience
of variation and relevance”, European Journal of Engineering
Education, 34, 4, 2009, 349-358.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Casey Canfield, Student, Franklin W. Olin College of
Engineering, casey.canfield@students.olin.edu.
Yevgeniya V. Zastavker, Associate Professor of Physics,
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering,
yevgeniya.zastavker@olin.edu.