The Intrinsic Learning Goals of Elementary School Students,in Their Own Words

Participants and Data Source

The sample involved 15 fourth- and fifth-grade children (73% boys) drawn from three elementary schools attended mostly by children of middle-class backgrounds. Fourth- and fifth-grade students in the United States are usually between ages 9 and 11 years. Thirteen of the children lived with two parents, whereas two were from single-parent families. One of the children was African American, one was Latino, and the remaining children were European American. This sample is ethnically representative of the children in the schools involved in the study, which predominantly had students from European American backgrounds. The schools were located in a Midwestern metropolitan area with an above average percentage of residents holding a college degree (Froiland, 2011).

It was within the context of autonomy-supportive parent training that the intrinsic learning and life goals were introduced. In fact, parents were encouraged to utilize autonomy-supportive techniques when teaching children how to set learning goals, when collecting learning goal sheets, and when encouraging students to set their learning goals on a weekly basis. Every parent demonstrated an understanding of the learning goals during the second session in which the researcher asked the parents to create three learning goals based on a chimerical assignment sheet. In fact, most of the parents wrote three pure learning goals on the first try. Likewise, all of the parents successfully identified the performance approach goal and the two pure learning goals, when the consultant (playing the child) pretended to hand in a learning goals sheet to the parents. The definition of intrinsic learning goals that parents and children were taught was, “An intrinsic learning goal means you try to understand something more, become better at doing something so that you can help others someday, or discover something interesting.”

Although mothers usually turned in the learning goals sheets, 10 of the 15 families also had a father participate in the learning goals training sessions. Four families had only a mother participate and one family had only the father participate. Children joined the parents and researcher at the dinner table or living room couch in each family’s home.

Procedure

In order to see how children develop learning goals applied to various academic subjects (when taught by their parents how to set intrinsic learning goals), learning goal sheets for daily homework assignments that 15 children turned in on a weekly basis during 5 weeks of a larger 7-week parenting intervention were qualitatively analyzed. A total of 131 goal sheets were collected that included students’ learning goals for various subjects and homework assignments, as well as their notes about their progress toward reaching the learning goals after completing their homework assignments. A doctoral graduate assistant blind to the hypotheses in the study transcribed all learning goals sheets into one large word-processing document. The lead researcher who delivered the intervention collected the learning goals sheets at the beginning of each new session. This study was approved by the institutional review board of the researcher’s institution.

The qualitative researcher and a research assistant independently examined transcripts of the learning goals sheets to inductively identify themes. Both researchers first immersed themselves in the data, becoming highly familiar with the transcripts through multiple reads, then both researchers separately developed a tentative list of themes with supporting quotes. Subsequently, they compared themes and supporting quotes, then reached an agreement about any differences, and refined the themes through further analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Froiland, 2015). In order to be considered a theme, it had to be observed among a significant number of participants (at least one-third) and be mentioned on at least two different weeks by multiple participants. Other high-quality qualitative studies have identified themes that involve as few as 15% of participants. For example, Minor, Onwuegbuzie, Witcher, and James (2002) identified seven themes with prevalence rates ranging from 15.7% to 55.2%. There is no hard-and-fast rule about what percentage of cases need to display a theme and some theoretically important themes may show up in relatively few cases (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Prevalence rates enable readers to roughly compare the effects of each theme on the overall sample of participants (Minor et al., 2002; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003). The fact that this was a 5-week goal intervention study enabled detecting whether the theme reappeared in subsequent weeks. Furthermore, the themes that emerged from the current study are in accordance with previous quantitative and qualitative studies on intrinsic goals, autonomous motivation, and engagement with learning (e.g., DeRobertis, 2017; Froiland, 2011; Kasser & Ryan, 2001; Vansteenkiste et al., 2006).

Theme 1: Overtly Healthy Attitudes Toward the Learning Process

The first theme that emerged was overtly healthy attitude toward the learning process, which entails many goals that explicitly included persistence, embracing challenges, enjoyment of learning, and other positive psychological constructs, such as creativity. This theme was present among 40% of participants (6 out of 15) and many of them (4 out 6; 66%) stated a goal in accordance with the theme on at least two different weeks. Although Themes 2 and 3 were more prevalent, this theme was striking because overtly healthy attitudes toward the learning process are thought to be benefits of setting intrinsic learning goals, rather than the goals themselves. Children were taught that “An intrinsic learning goal means you try to understand something more, become better at doing something so that you can help others someday, or discover something interesting.” These types of goals are consistently positively associated with intrinsic motivation, enjoyment of learning, persistence, deep engagement with learning, self-actualization, and happiness (e.g., Froiland & Worrell, 2016; Kasser & Ryan, 2001; Reiss & Havercamp, 2005). However, the quotes below suggest that a number of students wanted to directly include these outcomes in their goals. Participant 11 used a learning goal to help himself overcome procrastination. For his Valentine’s Day project, his goal was “Figure out how to be creative, and not wait until the last minute.” He later reported, “I was able to be creative and won the ‘most original’ prize.” Participant 8 had a learning goal for playing the piano that highlighted his positive attitude, “I’ll be more musical. I might be in a band and I might enjoy it.” For his progress report, he wrote, “At the end of the week, a song that was hard to learn is so much easier.”

Participant 9 wrote that his goal was, “To love learning more” and stated at the end of his assignment, “I can enjoy math now.” Interestingly, Participant 7 stated that he wanted to “Learn the joy of math” multiple times and reported being interested in his math problems. This is important because students who develop an enjoyment for math are more likely to take more rigorous math courses in high school and develop greater math achievement than students who dislike math (Froiland, Davison, & Worrell, 2016). Participant 9 wrote various other learning goals, such as “Learn how to speak Spanish fluently, because I’m going to visit a Spanish speaking country.” Before engaging in recorder practice, he wrote, “I hope to be able to read music better,” followed by, “I just thought being able to play music is interesting because of the cool noises.” This suggests that Participant 9 was developing his love for learning by seeing the meaningful and interesting applications of learning. Participant 12 set a goal: “To read better and enjoy what I read.” A focus on becoming a stronger reader and enjoying reading predicts more reading for pleasure and developing strong reading achievement over the course of elementary and middle school (Froiland & Oros, 2014). For each of these students, the positive attitude toward learning was especially salient.

When given a math calculations assignment, Participant 11 said his goal was “To learn multiplication using two digits, I hope to learn from mistakes made.” After completing his assignment, he said, “Still making mistakes, but understanding a little.” Realizing that mistakes on homework are opportunities for further growth, rather than being dreadful or embarrassing, is crucial for children. Participant 8 said that his goal for reading was, “To read harder words and get information from what I read” and then reported, “When I read every night, I get better at it.” These quotes suggest that these students were embracing academic challenges, which is an aspect of intrinsic learning goals and is moderately associated with intrinsic motivation to learn (Froiland & Worrell, 2016).

Theme 2: Helping Others

The goal of helping others was exhibited among 47% of participants (7 out of 15) and repeated on at least two different weeks among six out of seven (86%). Aspiring to help others is a crucial intrinsic learning goal and life goal, in that it promotes psychological well-being and academic achievement (Froiland et al., 2015; Froiland & Worrell, 2017; Kasser & Ryan, 2001). The motive to help others often does not increase until middle adulthood, even though it promotes self-actualization (Reiss & Havercamp, 2005). Schools often struggle with making it clear how learning applies to daily life, let alone how it applies to helping others or bettering one’s community (Brophy, 2008). Thus, it is encouraging that elementary students were able to articulate intrinsic goals that involved helping others. For instance, a student decided to apply learning goals to service-oriented assignments. For an assignment involving reading about expressing kindness toward other people, Participant 10 wrote, “To be ready to show love to other people” and the progress note stated, “Brought flowers to school.” He also wrote a goal to “Learn to help young children,” which was part of an assignment to help kindergarten students. His progress note stated that he found a puzzle of Australia to bring into the class. He later had an assignment to support the Red Cross, with his learning goal, “To share what we have with people” and another time, “To share with hungry people,” followed by the progress note by “Brought in fruit roll-ups” and “Brought in $1.50,” respectively. These small acts of kindness are often a big deal for a fourth or fifth grader. It is likely that the student benefited from setting these intrinsic life goals and recording the progress, rather than viewing these activities as mere required assignments to be checked off a list, which could lead to disengagement (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Indeed, students from elementary school to college find satisfaction and personal growth from acting on the motive to help others (Froiland, 2011; Froiland & Worrell, 2017; Snyder, Yanchar, & Gantt, 2015; Weems et al., 2015).

On two different occasions, Participant 12 set a goal for a reading assignment that he wanted to read, “So that I can read to little kids.” This suggests that he saw the connection between reading and helping younger children by reading to them. Helping younger children is in accordance with an intrinsic life goal focused on community feeling, which is likely to promote engagement, learning, and long-term subjective well-being (Kasser & Ryan, 2001; Snyder et al., 2015).

Participant 2 set the goal, “Learn more words so people understand what I write,” indicating that she wanted her writing to benefit readers. Participant 4 wrote, “Learn to spell so that I strengthen my vocabulary, which will help me talk well to parents when I’m a Gym teacher.” For a report about interviewing local workers, Participant 9 wrote, “Learn why people like their jobs and how their jobs contribute to our community,” which is very different than focusing on how much money workers make.

Theme 3: Deeper Purposes for Academic Subjects

Eleven out of 15 (73%) participants set a goal involving Deeper Purposes for Academic Subjects and 91% of them (10/11) stated a goal in accordance with this theme on at least two different weeks. Deeper Purposes for Academic Subjects consisted of the following three subthemes: (1) Purposeful Writing and Spelling Goals, (2) Deeper Reasons for Reading, and (3) Meaningful Math and Science Learning Goals. Each subtheme is explained below which is important because different academic subjects have some different motivational affordances (Brophy, 2008), even though there is some overlap among subjects in terms of the opportunities they offer.

Convergent Findings

The validity of the current data is supported by the fact that the favorable findings in the current study (e.g., students writing fine intrinsic learning goals applied to a variety of subjects and reporting positive progress after completing their homework assignments) are in harmony with the findings of Froiland (2011), in which the treatment group (who learned how to set intrinsic learning goals) gained statistically significantly more parent-rated intrinsic motivation to learn and child-rated positive emotions toward homework and school than the control group. The current findings are also in harmony with qualitative analyses of parent journals, which indicate that the parents recognized that their children were more focused on learning throughout the weeks of intervention and more happily engaged with a variety of academic subjects (Froiland, 2015). Parents reported very high levels of satisfaction with the training in general, which likely contributed to the 0% attrition rate (Froiland, 2011). This is much lower than the typical attrition rate in parent training studies, which is more than 30% (Assemany & McIntosh, 2002). The confluence of quantitative findings, parent journals, children’s goal sheets, and low attrition contribute to multiple forms of convergent data suggesting that children and parents found the sessions meaningful and beneficial. Both researchers independently identified similar motifs, even though they consolidated two themes via debate and further analysis.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

The qualitative data in this study provided rich insight into the daily intrinsic learning goals that children write for their homework assignments. Reminding students to record the date on each learning goals sheet could facilitate future analyses of students’ progression over the course of the intervention. Although the researchers independently reviewed the transcripts and had a high level of agreement about the themes (and quotes representing the themes), both researchers have been significantly influenced by self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), learning goals research (e.g., Vansteenkiste et al., 2009) as well as Brophy’s (2008) concept of motivation to learn, which may have affected their inductive analyses to some extent. Of course, all researchers are influenced by the theories they value, so it is good to recognize which theories may have influenced researchers conducting inductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In the future, member checking would enable researchers to see if the themes resonated with examinees and/or if their quotes could have alternative interpretations.

Future qualitative studies of learning goals interventions could build on this one by including a more diverse sample of children with a broader grade range to see if similar themes emerge. However, it is important to point out that the positive association between intrinsic motivation, learning goals, academic engagement, and achievement has been replicated in the United States among Asian American, European American, Latino American, African American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander samples (Froiland et al., 2016; Froiland & Worrell, 2016). Likewise, autonomy-supportive parental communication has shown positive effects among diverse samples in many different countries (Pomerantz et al., 2014; Vasquez et al., 2015). In addition, future studies could examine the school setting in order assess the extent to which teachers are introducing homework assignments in a way that guides children toward intrinsic life goals. For instance, one could examine whether teachers explain how topics and assignments are interesting and build skills that can be used to help others, or whether they follow more common patterns of heavily emphasizing deadlines, grades, and consequences for not completing assignments on time (Brophy, 2013). Prior quantitative and qualitative research indicates that students become more enthusiastic about learning when teachers are autonomy supportive and empathic (DeRobertis, 2016; Froiland et al., 2016).

Conclusions

Late elementary school children are capable of writing intrinsic life goals for homework that promote intrinsic motivation. Parents were able to teach children to write meaningful intrinsic goals for a variety of subjects, including music and foreign language. Children also wrote intrinsic goals that were focused directly on enjoying learning, persistence, and creativity, as well as intrinsic goals focused on helping others. In each case, children reported positive motivational, emotional, or academic progress after doing homework with these goals. Future learning goals intervention studies with children of similar ages could share these student-generated goals with other students so that they can see a wider variety of applications and child friendly examples than psychologists and educators might generate on their own.