Consideration of learning orientations as an application of achievement goals in evaluating life science majors in introductory physics

When considering performing an Introductory Physics for Life Sciences course transformation for one’s own institution, life science majors’ achievement goals are a necessary consideration to ensure the pedagogical transformation will be effective. However, achievement goals are rarely an explicit consideration in physics education research topics such as metacognition. We investigate a sample population of 218 students in a first-semester introductory algebra-based physics course, drawn from 14 laboratory sections within six semesters of course sections, to determine the influence of achievement goals on life science majors’ attitudes towards physics. Learning orientations that, respectively, pertain to mastery goals and performance goals, in addition to a learning orientation that does not report a performance goal, were recorded from students in the specific context of learning a problem-solving framework during an in-class exercise. Students’ learning orientations, defined within the context of students’ self-reported statements in the specific context of a problem-solving-related research-based course implementation, are compared to pre-post results on physics problem-solving items in a well-established attitudinal survey instrument, in order to establish the categories’ validity. In addition, mastery-related and performance-related orientations appear to extend to overall pre-post attitudinal shifts, but not to force and motion concepts or to overall course grade, within the scope of an introductory physics course. There also appears to be differentiation regarding overall course performance within health science majors, but not within biology majors, in terms of learning orientations; however, health science majors generally appear to fare less well on all measurements in the study than do biology majors, regardless of learning orientations.

Figure 1

Example of a context-rich problem provided during the laboratory group problem solving exercise.

Figure 2

Rubric used by students for metacognition, in consideration of a generalized problem-solving framework.

Figure 3

(Top) The portion of the end-of-semester feedback survey that pertains to the usefulness of the prelaboratory group problem-solving exercise. (bottom, left) The three learning orientation categories, including criteria that served to classify student responses as belonging to a respective category. (bottom, right) Sample self-reported statements of students in response to question 1, including highlighted language that meet the criteria of the orientation category in which the student is classified. Basic information about each student, and answers to question 2 where pertinent, are included in brackets.