Examining the Academic and Social Goals of Adolescents Who Excel Academically, Socially, in Both Areas, and in Neither

Students who have positive peer relations also tend to do better academically, and extensive research finds positive associations between students’ peer relations, motivation, and academic achievement. However, some adolescents may only be successful academically, or only socially, when at school. The current study expands upon previous research by examining the academic and social achievement goals of four groups of adolescent students: academic-social (high GPA and high number of peer nominations), academic-only (high GPA, low peer nominations), social-only (low GPA, high peer nominations), and neither (low on both). This study draws on Achievement Goal Theory to conceptualize students’ motivation. 759 students in grades 9-11 from a U.S. public high school completed surveys to assess their academic goals, social goals, and peer nominations at the beginning and end of the year. The four groups differed in meaningful ways in their levels of mastery, performance-approach, social development, social demonstration-approach, and social demonstration avoidance goals. For example, the academic-social group reported higher social development goals than students in either the social-only or academic-only groups, while the academic-only group reported significantly higher social demonstration-avoidance goals than all other groups. While the levels of academic and social goals differed in meaningful ways across the groups, the trajectories of change across the school year were similar across groups with the exception of academic performance-avoidance goals, which decreased more for the academic-social group. The findings have implications for how schools can better promote students’ academic and social development

The role of goal structures and peer climate in trajectories of social achievement goals during high school

Students’ social goals—reasons for engaging in interpersonal relationships with peers—are consequential for students’ interactions with their peers at school and for their well-being. Despite the salience of peer relationships during adolescence, research on social goals is generally lacking compared with academic goals, and it is unknown how these social goals develop over time, especially among high school students. The aim of the study was to assess trajectories of students’ social goals and to determine how relevant individual and contextual variables predicted initial levels and trajectories of students’ social goals. Participants were 9th through 12th grade students (N = 526) attending a U.S. high school. Students filled out surveys of their social goals (social development, social demonstration-approach, and social demonstration-avoidance) 6 times across 2 school years. Nonlinear growth curve analyses and piecewise growth curve analyses were used to assess trajectories of social goals across time. Students’ initial levels of social goals differed based on their gender, grade level, prior achievement, and perceptions of classroom goals structures and peer climate. Furthermore, despite substantial stability over time, the shapes of these goal trajectories were predicted by students’ gender, grade level, and perceptions of classroom goal structures and peer climate. In particular, students who perceived an increase in performance-avoidance classroom goals maintained higher demonstration social goals and decreased in developmental social goals over time, and students who perceived an increase in positive peer climate decreased in demonstration-avoidance social goals. Implications and directions for future research on social goals are discussed

Examining the Academic and Social Goals of Adolescents Who Excel Academically, Socially, in Both Areas, and in Neither

Students who have positive peer relations also tend to do better academically, and extensive research finds positive associations between students’ peer relations, motivation, and academic achievement. However, some adolescents may only be successful academically, or only socially, when at school. The current study expands upon previous research by examining the academic and social achievement goals of four groups of adolescent students: academic-social (high GPA and high number of peer nominations), academic-only (high GPA, low peer nominations), social-only (low GPA, high peer nominations), and neither (low on both). This study draws on Achievement Goal Theory to conceptualize students’ motivation. 759 students in grades 9-11 from a U.S. public high school completed surveys to assess their academic goals, social goals, and peer nominations at the beginning and end of the year. The four groups differed in meaningful ways in their levels of mastery, performance-approach, social development, social demonstration-approach, and social demonstration avoidance goals. For example, the academic-social group reported higher social development goals than students in either the social-only or academic-only groups, while the academic-only group reported significantly higher social demonstration-avoidance goals than all other groups. While the levels of academic and social goals differed in meaningful ways across the groups, the trajectories of change across the school year were similar across groups with the exception of academic performance-avoidance goals, which decreased more for the academic-social group. The findings have implications for how schools can better promote students’ academic and social development

Teacher Help-Seeking Beliefs and Help-Seeking Networks

Teachers work within a network of teachers at their school whose members can be an important source of advice and help, yet they must seek help from their colleagues in order to benefit from this network. This study employs social network analysis to examine how help-seeking patterns among teachers are related to teachers’ curricular domain, years of experience, and gender. Additionally, we examined how help-seeking beliefs (instrumental, expedient, and perceived threat) are related to help-seeking networks. Teachers (n = 81) from a representative U.S. high school participated in an online survey. They completed measures of their beliefs of help seeking and listed whom they sought help from at school. The data was used to create a network map of help-seeking relations. Results demonstrated that there were no gender differences. More experienced teachers reported lower instrumental benefits of help seeking but were sought for help more often by their colleagues. There were also differences in help seeking based on teachers’ subject area as indicated by the social network patterns. Associations between beliefs about help seeking and help-seeking network patterns were non-significant although in the hypothesized direction. This study lays the groundwork for further understanding of teachers’ help-seeking beliefs and help-seeking networks, including relevant factors that influence teacher help seeking within schools

Students’ interpersonal connections with peers and staff at the start of higher education

Establishing positive social relationships is important for students’ success and retention in higher education (HE). This can be especially challenging during the transition into HE since students often move to a larger educational setting and need to build relationships with new peers and staff. Research is needed to better understand social connections during this critical time, including the role of demographics, curricular and extracurricular participation, and how peer and staff connections predict academic achievement. Surveys of 290 first-year students at a large US public university assessed with whom students were interacting, how often, for what reasons, and with what modes of communication. Results include a detailed description of students’ interpersonal connections at the transition into HE, differences by demographics, curricular, and extracurricular participation, and the associations between students’ patterns of relationships and their academic achievement

Steps to the Future for 'Curriculum for Wales': Developing Coherence, Co-construction, and Praxis

Wales is in the process of major educational reform. The new curriculum (Curriculum for Wales, CfW) commenced in schools in September 2022. CfW differs from the previous curriculum through its focus on four purposes representing a “shared vision and aspiration” for every learner and by articulating learners' progression through six areas of learning and experience. In contrast to the previous performative culture in Wales (Evans, 2022), CfW suggests a more developmental view of learning. Also central to CfW is the principle of subsidiarity. Similar to ‘new curriculum’ in Finland, Scotland, and the Netherlands, CfW shifts away from top-down policy and gives schools and teachers greater autonomy (Sinnema et al., 2020). Professional understandings of progression in learning, and a recognition that learners start at different points and progress in different ways, are meant to form the basis for schools’ curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy arrangements (Welsh Government, 2021). We engaged in conversations with professionals from across the system to address the following research questions: 1. What influences are there on current and future curriculum realisation? 2. How are educational partners moving their identified priorities forward for curriculum realisation? 3. How can new knowledge from co-construction activity be fed back into the system in ways that are meaningful? In this presentation, we share findings to the research questions and discuss how these inform phase two of our project. Wales has adopted a number of the OECD’s (2018) principles for the future of education systems, and thus insights gained through this research will be of interest to other countries taking similar approaches

Curricular Progression and Pupil Learning: Towards a Method for Understanding how Pupils Progress in Learning Over Time

Over recent years, several countries in Europe and elsewhere have seen a resurgent interest in the concept of learning progression and what it means to progress in learning. Learning progressions, or ‘progression frameworks’, are typically thought about as optimised pathways along which pupils might be expected to progress towards greater sophistication in knowledge and skills. They can be informed by or be the product of research and classroom evidence, and can be used to support effective teaching, learning and formative assessment. They have also been critiqued for imposing a sense of linearity and predictability in learning as well as artificial ceilings that can be narrowing and reductive. While many studies of learning progression are concerned with single concepts or ideas (e.g., progression in understanding the concept of matter), the notion that learning becomes more sophisticated is variously reflected in different country’s curricula. Here, we present a study funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (RIG009335) that was undertaken to design a methodological approach for developing a rich understanding pupils’ progression in learning. It is set within the context of Welsh Educational reform and is designed to form part of a future and larger-scale longitudinal study that will follow individual pupils through several years and stages of a national education system in which learning progression is foregrounded. We positioned this study by first exploring, challenging and making explicit our own understandings and assumptions about the nature of learning, its acquisitional and participatory natures and the socio-cultural context of classrooms. Making progress in learning was seen as different to making progress in performance and we distinguish between ‘learning progressions’ as symbolic representations of possible ways learning might evolve, and the substantive learning of pupils which may or may not reflect these

Teachers as curriculum-makers: professional learning implications for enacting a new curriculum in Wales, perspectives from the Humanities and Mathematics and Numeracy Areas of Learning and Experience

The new purpose-led ‘Curriculum for Wales’ (Donaldson, 2015) will be structured around six Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs): Expressive Arts; Health and Wellbeing; Humanities; Languages, Literacy and Communication; Mathematics and Numeracy; and Science and Technology, with literacy, numeracy and digital competence as cross-curricular responsibilities. Wales’ approach to incorporating learning progression within curriculum design is innovative in bringing together multiple forms of evidence, for example, research on learning progression, teacher and pupil understandings of progression, and insights from other national frameworks, in order to create bespoke progression frameworks for each AoLE tailored to the needs of young people in Wales (Hayward et al., 2018). This paper draws on the authors’ experience and research from working with curriculum ‘pioneer’ schools as part of the ‘CAMAU’ project, designed to facilitate research-informed learning progressions for the new curriculum. It reports on its early findings, with particular focus on the Humanities and Mathematics and Numeracy AoLEs, and considers the processes and tensions that arose in the creation of progression frameworks

Teachers as curriculum-makers: Professional learning implications for enacting a new curriculum in Wales, perspectives from the Humanities and Mathematics and Numeracy Areas of Learning and Experience

No abstract available

CAMAU Project: Progression Frameworks and Progression Steps

This paper contains information which provides a context for the work of the CAMAU research team based in the Universities of Glasgow and of Wales Trinity Saint David. This information includes an outline of the context of curriculum and assessment arrangements within which the research is situated and provides information on the processes of working with the Pioneer Schools network, a key aspect of the Welsh Government’s commitment to subsidiarity in educational decision making. This paper also includes key findings from the project’s Interim Report (October 2017) ‘Learning about Progression’