Faculty of Psychology, Department of Applied Psychology: Work, Education, and Economy, University of Vienna, Austria.
Centre for Teacher Education, Department for Teacher Education, University of Vienna, Austria.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2019 Jun;89(2):239-258. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12237. Epub 2018 Jul 10.
Within-class consensus on mastery goal structures describes the extent to which students agree in their perceptions of mastery goal structures. Research on (work) teams suggests that higher levels of consensus within a group indicate a well-functioning social environment and are thus positively related to beneficial socio-emotional outcomes. However, the potential of within-class consensus to predict socio-emotional outcomes has not yet been explored in research on mastery goal structures.
This study aimed to test whether within-class consensus on the three mastery goal structures dimensions of task, autonomy, and recognition/evaluation has predictive power for socio-emotional outcomes in terms of classroom climate, negative classmate reactions to errors, and cooperative learning.
A total of 1,455 Austrian secondary school students (65.70% female) in 157 classrooms participated in this study.
Students responded to items measuring their perceptions of mastery goal structures, classroom climate, error climate, and cooperative learning. Items assessing mastery goal structures, error climate, and cooperative learning referred to the subject of mathematics and items assessing classroom climate referred to positive classmate relations without focusing on a subject.
Results from multilevel structural equation models revealed that within-class consensus on all mastery goal structures dimensions predicted a less negative error climate. Additionally, consensus regarding task and autonomy predicted more frequent use of cooperative learning strategies, and consensus regarding task predicted a more positive classroom climate.
Our findings show that higher levels of within-class consensus on mastery goal structures enhance beneficial socio-emotional outcomes. Moreover, the results emphasize the value of expanding the scope of educational research to the study of within-class consensus.
班级内对掌握目标结构的共识程度描述了学生在对掌握目标结构的看法上的一致性程度。团队研究表明,小组内的共识水平越高,表明社会环境运作良好,因此与有益的社会情感结果呈正相关。然而,在掌握目标结构的研究中,班级内共识预测社会情感结果的潜力尚未得到探索。
本研究旨在测试在任务、自主性和认可/评价这三个掌握目标结构维度上的班级内共识是否对课堂氛围、同学对错误的负面反应以及合作学习等社会情感结果具有预测力。
共有 157 个班级的 1455 名奥地利中学生(65.70%为女性)参与了这项研究。
学生回答了衡量他们对掌握目标结构、课堂氛围、错误氛围和合作学习感知的项目。评估掌握目标结构、错误氛围和合作学习的项目是针对数学科目,而评估课堂氛围的项目则没有专注于某一科目,而是针对积极的同学关系。
多层次结构方程模型的结果表明,所有掌握目标结构维度上的班级内共识均预测了更负面的错误氛围。此外,任务和自主性方面的共识预测了更频繁地使用合作学习策略,而任务方面的共识则预测了更积极的课堂氛围。
我们的研究结果表明,更高水平的掌握目标结构班级内共识增强了有益的社会情感结果。此外,这些结果强调了将教育研究范围扩大到班级内共识研究的价值。