British Journal of Educational Psychology

The type of academic goals pursued by students is one of the most important variables in motivational research in educational contexts. Although motivational theory and research have emphasised the somewhat exclusive nature of two types of goal orientation (learning goals versus performance goals), some studies (Meece, 1994; Seifert, 1995, 1996) have shown that the two kinds of goals are relatively complementary and that it is possible for students to have multiple goals simultaneously, which guarantees some flexibility to adapt more efficaciously to various contexts and learning situations.The principal aim of this study is to determine the academic goals pursued by university students and to analyse the differences in several very significant variables related to motivation and academic learning.Participants were 609 university students (74% women and 26% men) who filled in several questionnaires about the variables under study.We used cluster analysis ('quick cluster analysis' method) to establish the different groups or clusters of individuals as a function of the three types of goals (learning goals, performance goals, and social reinforcement goals). By means of MANOVA, we determined whether the groups or clusters identified were significantly different in the variables that are relevant to motivation and academic learning. Lastly, we performed ANOVA on the variables that revealed significant effects in the previous analysis.Using cluster analysis, three groups of students with different motivational orientations were identified: a group with predominance of performance goals (Group PG: n = 230), a group with predominance of multiple goals (Group MG: n = 238), and a group with predominance of learning goals (Group LG: n = 141).Groups MG and LG attributed their success more to ability, they had higher perceived ability, they took task characteristics into account when planning which strategies to use in the learning process, they showed higher persistence, and used more deep learning strategies than did the students with predominance of performance goals (Group PG). On the other hand, Groups MG and PG took the evaluation criteria more into account when deciding which strategies to use in order to learn, and they attributed their failures more to luck than did Group LG. Students from Group MG attributed their success more to effort than did the other two groups and they attained higher achievement than Group PG. Group LG tended to attribute their failures more to lack of effort than did the other two groups.

Antonio Valle

Ramón G. Cabanach

José C. Núnez

Julio González‐Pienda

Susana Rodríguez

Isabel Piñeiro

Multiple goals, motivation and academic learning

Background Identifying the factors that influence teacher beliefs about teaching children with learning difficulties is important for the success of inclusive education. This study explores the relationship between teachers' role, self‐efficacy, attitudes towards disabled people, teaching experience and training, on teachers' attributions for children's difficulties in learning. Method One hundred and eighteen primary school teachers (44 general mainstream, 33 mainstream learning support, and 41 special education teachers) completed the short form of the Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale, the Interaction with Disabled Persons Scale (IDP), and a revised version of the Teacher Attribution Scale. Results Regression analysis found that teachers' role influenced stability and controllability attributions. However, for stability attributions the effect was not sustained when examined in the context of the other factors of teaching efficacy, experience, training, and attitudes towards disability. What emerged as important instead was strong feelings of sympathy towards disabled people which predicted stable attributions about learning difficulties. Experience of teaching children with additional support needs and teaching efficacy positively predicted external locus of causality attributions. Surprisingly, training was not found to have an impact on attributions. A mixed MANOVA found that mainstream teachers' controllability attributions were influenced by whether or not the child had identified learning support needs. Conclusions Teacher efficacy, experience of teaching students with support needs, attitudes towards disabled people, and teachers' role all impact on teacher attributions, but no relationship with training was found. Implications for teacher training and development, and for student achievement and student self‐perception are discussed.

Katy Brady

Lisa Woolfson

What teacher factors influence their attributions for children's difficulties in learning?

Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills encapsulate a complex array of grammatical and semantic skills that underpin complex reading comprehension processes. However, most research in this area has focused on children with reading difficulties and not on typically developing children. Also the research has mostly focused on short-term effects of these skills on reading during the primary school years. Therefore, it remains unclear what specific role linguistic comprehension and narrative skills play in typically developing children's reading beyond the primary school years.With this 9-year prospective longitudinal study, we sought to clarify the independent effects of linguistic comprehension and narrative skill (at 5 years of age) on children's reading ability at 10 and 14 years of age.We examined the data from 716 children (MAge = 67 months, SD = 2.13 months), which were drawn from a major population cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.Children's language skills were assessed at 5 and word reading and reading comprehension skills at 10 years of age. The reading achievement scores at 14 years of age were based on national curriculum test results.Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills at 5 years of age made unique and direct contributions to reading comprehension skills and reading achievement after accounting for general cognitive ability, memory, phonological skills, and mother's education. Moreover, listening comprehension predicted reading achievement even when prior reading skills were taken into account.Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills are related but distinct oral language skills that continue to influence children's reading development beyond the primary school years.

Selma Babayiğit

Sue Roulstone

Yvonne Wren

Br J Educ Psychol

Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills predict reading ability: A 9‐year longitudinal study

The relationship between shyness and self-esteem was assessed for two samples of children aged 9 to 12 years. Shyness was measured by a new self-report questionnaire based on an elicitation of children's conceptions of shyness. Shyness was significantly correlated with measures of global self-esteem, with external locus of control and with perceived competence across different domains of the self. The relationship among variables were similar to those reported for adolescents and adults. Girls were more shy than boys, and there was a suggestion that 11-year-old children were more shy in secondary than in primary school.

W. Ray Crozier

Shyness and self‐esteem in middle childhood

Background Appraisals of control and value are proposed as proximal antecedents of achievement emotions, which, in turn, predict achievement. Relatively few studies have investigated how control and value may interact to determine achievement emotions, or subsequent achievement mediated by emotions. Aim To examine whether control, value, and their interaction predicted mathematics test score directly, and indirectly, mediated by three salient achievement emotions: enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety. Method Data were collected from 1,298 primary schoolchildren. Participants completed self‐report measures of control, value (i.e., intrinsic, attainment, and utility), and achievement emotions (i.e., enjoyment, boredom, and anxiety), in the context of mathematics. Participants then undertook a curriculum‐based mathematics test in class. Results Higher control and value were related to a higher mathematics test score directly, and indirectly, mediated via higher enjoyment and lower anxiety. The interaction of control and intrinsic value predicted mathematics test score directly, and indirectly, mediated via enjoyment. Conclusion Intrinsic value amplified the direct positive relation between control and mathematics test score. Intrinsic value also protected mathematics test scores at lower levels of control indirectly, through higher enjoyment. Helping students to maximize control and value will be beneficial for their learning experience and outcomes.

David W. Putwain

Eva A. Schmitz

Peter Wood

Reinhard Pekrun

The role of achievement emotions in primary school mathematics: Control–value antecedents and achievement outcomes

Abstract Background For over a decade, growth‐oriented achievement goal constructs like potential‐based goals and personal best goals have remained relatively unnoticed. This empirical study aims to highlight that goal theorists might be limiting themselves by not incorporating potential‐based goals into their frameworks. Aims The primary objective of this research was to underscore the significant yet underappreciated role of potential‐based goals in empirical studies within the 3 × 2 achievement goal framework. Samples The sample comprises 10,079 international undergraduate students from a Dutch university, drawn from nine cohorts spanning academic years from 2015/2016 to 2023/2024. Methods To validate the eight‐factor measurement model of achievement goals, we employed first and second‐order confirmatory factor analyses. Correlational analysis and structural equation models were utilized to explore the relationships between achievement goal measures, various learning dispositions, and academic performance. Results Our analysis shows that all eight goal constructs clearly distinguish and confirm both first‐order and second‐order factor analysis models based on approach and avoidance factors. Further analyses include obtaining correlations and structural equation prediction models, where goal setting facets predict learning mindsets, such as intelligence theories, effort beliefs, autonomous and controlled regulation, motivation, engagement, learning approaches, and performance strategies. Conclusions Within a system of criterion‐referenced grading of courses, our findings indicate that potential‐based goals play a pivotal role in exploring relationships with other learning dispositions and predicting performance. It is therefore imperative to incorporate these goals into our measurement instruments for goal frameworks, even if it means prioritizing them over other types of intrapersonal goals.

Dirk Tempelaar

The unrecognized potential of potential‐based achievement goals

基于潜能的成就目标的未被认识的潜力

Abstract Background The present special issue on mind, brain and education (educational neuroscience) contains four papers that employ a neuroscience‐informed approach to educational phenomena, including dyslexia, academic self‐concepts, bullying and the effect of mindset on learning. Aim This commentary positions the papers with respect to the goals and methods of educational neuroscience, placing them on a continuum of approaches from basic research to applied intervention. Procedure We argue that a focus on the brain matters for teachers because it increases understanding of how learning works and the factors that influence learning outcomes and student well‐being without being reductionist. Constraints on learning that arise from biology sometimes seem arbitrary outside a neuroscience framework (several examples are provided). A neuroscience perspective encourages a more holistic and developmental view of learning than a narrow cognitive (memory) oriented approach. Because educational neuroscience is an inherently translational field that relies on dialogues between researchers and practitioners, we argue it is important to understand how teachers view the field and how insights from the science of learning might usefully feed into their practice. We then assess the insights, strengths and limitations of the four papers, as well as the potential that their respective lines of work offer.

M. S. C. Thomas

Y. Arslan

Why does the brain matter for education?

大脑为何对教育至关重要？

Abstract Background Learning to write the complex academic language (AL) associated with a discipline (like science) is a critical task in education, with middle school being a key developmental period. However, we need more research to guide how we assess students' learning to write AL, especially if we want to create assessment that guides more effective instruction. Aims We evaluated middle school students' informational writing for six different measures of AL to determine which ones were most strongly related to writing quality and were most indicative of the unique features of informational writing. We also examined which metrics were sensitive to growth across middle school. Sample Our sample consists of informational compositions from 285 students in Grade 5 ( n = 175) and Grade 8 ( n = 110) in a Midwestern state in the United States. Methods Path modelling was used to determine the degree to which the AL metrics are associated with writing quality and narrativity in each grade. Results Overall, the six measures of AL explained 70% of the variance in students' writing quality. We found that a new measure, number of long words, outperformed other more established measures at the word level and should be used in assessment of informational writing quality. We also found that automated scores at the sentence level better detected development across middle school grade levels than typical rubrics of writing quality. Conclusion Results provide promising avenues for the assessment of malleable aspects of AL in middle school informational writing.

Cherish M. Sarmiento

Adrea J. Truckenmiller

Eunsoo Cho

Heqiao Wang

Academic language use in middle school informational writing

中学信息写作中的学术语言使用

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. In this Editorial, no original study data are provided.

Gabriele Steuer

Maria Tulis

Elizabeth R. Peterson

Learning from errors and failure in educational contexts

教育情境中的错误与失败学习

Abstract Background and Aims The hypothesis that study strategies can compensate for less study time in predicting learning outcomes has often been proposed but rarely tested empirically. Methods In the present study, 231 university students reported their daily perceived time spent on self‐study, study strategies (planning, monitoring, concentration and procrastination) and goal achievement over a 30 days period. Results and Conclusion Results showed that both more overall perceived study time and better study strategies (better planning, monitoring, and concentration, less procrastination) predicted higher goal achievement at the end of the day. In addition, perceived study time and study strategies interactively predicted goal achievement. When students reported better planning, monitoring and concentration as well as lower procrastination, less time was needed to achieve a high goal level compared to days on which they studied less strategically. In other words, when students studied less strategically, they had to invest more time to reach a higher goal level. In addition, perceived study time and study strategies were related to students' negative affect. Negative affect was particularly high when students studied for many hours with low concentration, and it was particularly low when students studied for only a few hours and procrastinated less. Taken together, the results suggest a compensatory effect of study time and study strategies on daily goal achievement and affect, highlighting the need to teach students effective study strategies.

Maria Theobald

Study longer or study effectively? Better study strategies can compensate for less study time and predict goal achievement and lower negative affect

学习时间长还是学习有效？更好的学习策略可以弥补较少学习时间并预测目标达成和降低负面情绪

Abbreviation	Brit J of Edu Psychol
Journal Impact	3.20
Quartiles(Global)	PSYCHOLOGY, EDUCATIONAL(Q1)

ISSN	0007-0998, 2044-8279
h-index	113

Publication Information	Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 1962，Proportion of original research papers: 96.55%，Self Citation Rate:9.70%， Gold OA Rate: 41.28%

British Journal of Educational Psychology

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