CHAPTER 3: Student Goals and Hierarchies

Abstract

THE STANDARDS PUT FORTH GOALS FOR STUDENT LEARNING THAT EDUCATORS use to shape curriculum and assessment. Although the 11 standards and the five goal areas are expressly intended to be interrelated, as shown graphically in the logo of the five interlocking Cs that is the central metaphor for the Standards document, educators have tended to prioritize some goal areas over others, thereby creating an unintended hierarchy of importance for instruction (for a fuller discussion, see Chapter 1). In this chapter, we consider findings from the first set of research questions (postsecondary student goals) to demonstrate how students' goals accord with the Standards and to provide the hierarchy of the goal areas and individual content standards from the student perspective. Our examination considers the responses of all students (levels, languages) together. 1 Using the survey data, we first investigate whether postsecondary students feel that their learning goals are consistent with the Standards and then how learners prioritize the Standards' goals in terms of the personal importance they attach to them. As we present student priorities, we discuss how they align with educators' priorities reported in the professional literature. To scrutinize the results of the survey, we then turn to individual student voices from the interviews. These voices provide further insight on how the students understand the Standards statements and on their thinking about the importance of each goal to them. FINDINGS FROM THE SURVEYThe survey allows us to consider both whether students see their goals as consistent with the Standards and how the value they place on these goals could create a hierarchy of student goals for the Standards. Consistency of Student Goals With the StandardsWe begin with an analysis of how students perceive the Standards through the survey question "How important is this goal for you?" asked of students about each of the 11 content standards. 2 The students rated their goals for each of the 11 content standards on a five-point scale-extremely (5), very (4), somewhat (3), slightly (2), not at all (1) important-to reveal the degree of importance of each content standard in terms of their personal learning goals. Figure 3.1 presents the distribution of students' responses grouped by the five response categories, pooled across the 11 content standards.Additively, the more positive response categories, pointing toward higher agreement with the Standards, which we define to include the extremely (5), very (4), and somewhat (3) important responses, account for 89% of all responses, while the more negative categories, defined to include slightly (2) and not at all (1) important, account for 11% of responses. Looking across the 11 content standards, only 3% of students indicated that the standards were not at all (1) important for them. These results suggest that the Standards represent goals that are important to learners, and are very encouraging, given the increasing emphasis on teaching toward the Standards in the Unite...