Achievement Goals and Conceptual Learning: An Examination of Teacher Talk

Achievement goals are the reasons for pursuing competence-related tasks. Much prior work has shown that they can affect student motivation, learning, and performance outcomes. They are typically measured in classroom settings vis-a-vis self-report surveys about students' goals or the perceived goal structure of the class. Less work has measured how achievement goals naturally emerge in class instruction. We address this gap by examining teacher talk for evidence of different achievement goals and their relation to conceptual math learning. Classrooms with high- and low-growth on a conceptual mathematics assessment were compared for instances of mastery- or performance-focused talk in relation to the framing of the instructional task, student recognition, and student evaluation. Results showed that teachers from high-growth classrooms used more mastery-focused talk for both the framing of the task and student evaluation than teachers from low-growth classrooms. Teachers from low-growth classrooms used more performance-focused talk for the framing of the task than teachers from high-growth classrooms. There were no differences between high- and low-growth classrooms for either mastery or performance student recognition or performance-focused student evaluation. These results help to bridge the gap between teacher practice and achievement goal theory and have implications for understanding how goals manifest in the classroom as well as possible interventions that support productive classroom goals and student learning.