Exploring Middle School Students’ Goal Orientation In Two Contexts: Math And Music

Abstract

While decades of study have supported the trichotomous goal orientation model presented by Elliot and Harackiewicz (1996), minimal work has been conducted on understanding whether the model is effective across different classroom types. For instance, while mathematics, history, and other core classes utilize a traditional approach in which the student’s learning is demonstrated and assessed through private instruments (tests, quizzes, worksheets, etc.), several other classes utilize radically different methods for demonstration and assessment of learning. These classes include music, drama, speech, physical education, and several others. Given the large corpus of work around goal orientation, one would assume these types of classes have been studied extensively through the goal orientation lens. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Thus, in an effort to understand whether classroom context impacts goal orientation, a study was conducted with a sample of middle-school aged students enrolled in private music lessons (N=13) from three states. These students were asked to complete a version of the Achievement Goal Questionnaire (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) once for their music lessons and once for their math class. In order to illuminate potential findings, a qualitative instrument was included after each section which asked participants to define performance in the context of each situative type. Given the small sample size, the quantitative results produced no significant difference in goal orientation between the situative types and, in fact, near uniformity in the goal orientations of all participants (the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is discussed). Qualitative results, however, demonstrate important findings for music teachers in understanding how students perceive what it means to do well in their music lessons. Implications for education, goal orientation theory, and future research are discussed.

Keywords: Goal Orientation, Music, Math, Performance, Middle-School, Music Lessons