Achievement Goal Orientations of Community College Mathematics Students and the Misalignment of Instructor Perceptions

Abstract

This study reports on the results of a survey of achievement goal orientations administered to a sample of 777 students enrolled in remedial and college-level mathematics courses at a community college. Results indicate that students’ achievement goal orientations are consistent with adaptive learning patterns: Students are interested in developing competence, expect and believe they can handle challenging work, avoid self-handicapping behaviors, and exhibit a positive mathematics self-concept. However, interviews with faculty members teaching the courses in which the students were enrolled revealed that instructors had a more negative perspective. This discrepancy suggests that instructors might not be taking advantage of the high confidence and motivation to learn that their students bring to the mathematics classroom.

Designing representations of trigonometry instruction to study the rationality of community college teaching

“…We have interviews in which these faculty members describe their views of teaching in the college and their approaches to teaching mathematics, and their students' responses to an anonymous survey of achievement orientation goals (Mesa 2010b;Midgley, Maehr, Hruda, Anderman and Others 2000). Every instructor was observed at least three times teaching each course.…”

“…Students are responsible for doing homework, showing up for class, asking questions whenever they do not understand something, taking tests, and participating in class as demanded by the instructor. Students work under the following assumptions: that their teachers are there to help them gain competence with the material, that their teachers will press them to do challenging work, and that they themselves are capable of doing what it takes to be successful (Mesa 2010b). The instructors are very aware of the multiple demands that their students have on their time due to work and family responsibilities, and have learned to not take it personally when students stop coming to their class (Grubb and Associates 1999;Seidman 1985).…”

Methodological Considerations in the Analysis of Classroom Interaction in Community College Trigonometry

“…Thus instructors, in an effort to help them gain confidence, will ask questions that they think students can answer without risking failure. As a result, the questions they ask tend to be of a routine nature, thus creating a situation in which students are rarely exposed to or expected to answer difficult questions, thus constraining opportunities for the students (Mesa, 2010(Mesa, , 2012. Another possibility is that teachers fear that students might not be able to take on Novel questions on their own or without the appropriate scaffolding.…”

Relationship between career aspirations and study behaviours among second year distance learners of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana

“…Mesa (2012) asserts that individuals with positive career aspirations have high learning goal orientation because their characteristics of seeking to master new skills, complete tasks and overcome difficulties will be in line with their career pursuits. Horne (2010) opines that students need to comprehend that the core skills learned in class are directly linked to their career interests and this will increase their motivation to perform well.…”