This article provides an insider account of one school's journey towards a curriculum offer which makes use of a meaningful, mastery project-based approach. The initiative incorporates consideration of self-determination theory to secure outcomes which are relevant to the needs of students. The account offers insights into a work in progress and…

This study utilized a 2 × 2 achievement goal model to explore a relationship between achievement goals and social goals, and how these goals are associated with junior high school students' self-reported persistence toward physical activities. A total of 246 students from four junior high schools participated in the study. The results revealed…

This study evaluated the relations between adolescents' school and career future time perspective and their academic-related outcomes (i.e. grades, learning problems, and task orientation) and whether mastery goals are mediators of these relations. Romanian adolescents (N = 229, 59% girls) completed questionnaires assessing future orientation,…

How do we motivate students to practice and persist when facing challenges inherent in learning to play an instrument? In this article, I synthesize research findings into strategies to encourage students' mastery goal orientations and intrinsic motivation. Educators can use these strategies in the classroom or as inspiration to create innovative…

The purpose of this research was to explore gender differences and cultural differences in school motivation among students from eight culturally diverse groups from Western and non-Western societies. The selected groups come from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, the Netherlands, and Qatar. More than 10,000 secondary school…

Deeper learning is great for exploring a topic in great depth, but it will fail if student motivation isn't taken into account. Researchers Eric Anderman and Adriana Calvit discuss how to align your deeper learning curriculum with motivational strategies for successful lessons.

Mastery goal structures, which communicate value for developing deeper understanding, are an important classroom support for student motivation and engagement, especially in the context of science learning aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards. Prior research has identified key dimensions of goal structures, but a more nuanced…

For decades there has been considerable research investigating educational climates in physical education. From those investigations, it is accurate to conclude that mastery motivational climates are a highly effective instructional approach when teaching motor skills and promoting physical activity engagement for young children. Due to this,…

The transition to college may present beginning college learners with novel academic opportunities and challenges, including the requirement to learn independently from complex college-level texts. Several achievement motivation factors may play a role in explaining differences in beginning college learners' use of deep-level reading comprehension…

This study focused on the question of how to enhance a mastery-goal orientation in the classroom. We started from the perspective of the achievement goal theory, which assumes that the goals that students have (personal goals) relate to the goals that are set in the classroom (classroom goal structures). In classrooms where teachers focus on…

Maximize learning by making grades more meaningful and motivating to students. With the support of this practical guide, professional learning communities (PLCs) will discover a clear road map for implementing a standards-based grading system at the secondary level. The authors provide all of the actionable ideas and tools needed to not only…

Authors Pete Hall, Alisa Simeral, Bryan Goodwin, Bj Stone, and Bess Scott identify 24 of the most common "problems of practice" faced by educators--something that is not going quite as well as it could in the teaching-learning process--and show educators how to guide their own self-reflective journey toward solving these problems,…

Self-determination theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2000) suggests that when a person is motivated they likely experience a sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. It is important to understand how these constructs relate to physical activity and sport if we are to persist in our notion that these pursuits can positively impact the holistic…

The present article focuses on classroom climate effects in the context of multi-level structural equation modelling. We first discuss the need to appropriately model classroom climate as a classroom-level construct. We then analyse the effects of classroom climate (academic goal structures and social goal structures) on students' motivation in…

This study aimed to investigate the relationships among mastery goal orientations (approach and avoidance), adaptive coping strategy (positive coping), and motivational beliefs (self-efficacy and task value) among middle school students in science. The study group consists of 249 students studying at four middle schools in one of the largest…