Author: Joanna L. Kaye Publisher: ISBN: Category : Clinical psychology Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
The transition from high school to college can be difficult and often leads to maladjustment, psychopathological symptoms, and student attrition. Prevention efforts are needed to help freshmen adjust to college. Young adults often have low self-control and increased rates of temporal discounting (the weakening of consequence effects due to delay), which are in turn associated with maladjustment and maladaptive behaviors. Two methods that might improve self-control and temporal discounting and, accordingly, freshman adjustment to college, are goal-setting and values interventions. These programs aim to help freshmen set effective goals and clarify and commit to what is important to them. An assessment of the effects of these programs might include as comparison a program that provides students with education about university resources, which is the current standard for helping freshmen adjust to college. The current study sought to determine the differential impacts of goal-setting, values plus goal-setting, and education interventions on adjustment to college, quality of life, retention, and maladaptive behaviors. The study also aimed to examine whether changes in these variables were moderated or mediated by changes in self-control and temporal discounting. College freshmen (N = 168) completed surveys and were randomly assigned to complete a single-session online goal-setting, values plus goal-setting, or education intervention at the beginning of the first quarter of college. After the first quarter, they completed endpoint surveys that assessed key variables. Results revealed that participants in the goal-setting and values plus goal-setting conditions worsened in adjustment and psychopathology, whereas adjustment scores and psychopathological symptoms for the participants in the education intervention did not change. The groups did not differ in quality of life or retention rates immediately following the initial academic term, and changes in self-control and temporal discounting did not mediate changes in outcome variables. Notably, almost half of the participants in the values plus goal-setting condition withdrew from the program. Findings suggest that providing concrete information to freshmen about navigating university life helped protect them from the regular deterioration that often occurs during this critical transition period. Additionally, attrition rates and participant responses to free-response questions suggest that the combined values plus goal-setting intervention was not as palatable to many students compared to the education intervention. Findings also indicate that brief goal-setting and values interventions do not effectively improve self-control or rates of temporal discounting. Future research should examine whether changes to the structure of the programs (e.g., in-person delivery, several sessions over the course of the term) or the audience (e.g., older college students, treatment-seeking freshmen) yield different results. Future research might also consider expanding the education program by personalizing information provision or extending program material across the term to determine if such changes further improve freshman adjustment.
Author: Taylor Wayne Acee Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 394
Book Description
The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the differential effects of goal setting and value reappraisal on female students' self-efficacy beliefs, value perceptions, exam performance and continued interest in statistics. It was hypothesized that the Enhanced Goal Setting Intervention (GS-E) would positively impact students' self-efficacy beliefs and exam performance, whereas the Enhanced Value-Reappraisal (VR-E) was expected to positively affect students' value perceptions and continued interest in learning statistics. A total of 88 female undergraduate students enrolled in two sections of an introductory statistics course completed the entire study. Students were primarily Caucasian, upper division, and traditionally aged. Students were stratified on course section and year in school and randomly assigned to one of three groups: Control Group (n=30); GS-E Group (n=27); and VR-E (n=31). GS-E asked students to both set and self-evaluate eight goals focused on reaching learning objectives for their upcoming statistics exam. VR-E presented students with messages about why learning statistics could be important for them and guided them in processing these messages. The Control Condition asked students to complete three Texas Information Literacy Tutorial modules and answer reflective questions. Findings from this dissertation partially supported the hypotheses related to VR-E, but no support was found for the hypotheses related to GS-E. The VR-E Intervention was found to positively impact measures of students' value perceptions and continued interest. Immediate effects of VR-E were observed on: 1) the overall value students placed on learning statistics; 2) students' interest and enjoyment of statistics; 3) the importance students placed on developing statistical knowledge and skills for the attainment of their future goals; and 4) students' intentions to continue learning statistics on their own. However, relatively stronger and longer-lasting effects were observed on the later two variables. Also, students in the VR-E Group outperformed students in the GS-E Group on their post-intervention exam; however, neither group was significantly different from the Control Group. Findings from this research help to address the growing economic and social needs for the development and evaluation of theory-based educational interventions that target the improvement of college students' achievement and continued interest in math and science education.
Author: Damon Clark Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 56
Book Description
Will college students who set goals for themselves work harder and achieve better outcomes? In theory, setting goals can help present-biased students to mitigate their self-control problem. In practice, there is little credible evidence on the causal effects of goal setting for college students. We report the results of two field experiments that involved almost four thousand college students in total. One experiment asked treated students to set goals for performance in the course; the other asked treated students to set goals for a particular task (completing online practice exams). Task-based goals had large and robust positive effects on the level of task completion, and task-based goals also increased course performance. Further analysis indicates that the increase in task completion induced by setting task-based goals caused the increase in course performance. We also find that performance-based goals had positive but small effects on course performance. We use theory that builds on present bias and loss aversion to interpret our results. Since task-based goal setting is low-cost, scaleable and logistically simple, we conclude that our findings have important implications for educational practice and future research.
Author: Joanna L. Kaye
Author: Taylor Wayne Acee
Author: Taylor Wayne Acee
Author: Edwin A. Locke
Author: Patricia Vann
Author: Damon Clark
Author: Cassendra M. Russell
Author: Rebecca J. Reichard
Author: Paul Gregory Comfort
Author: Judy Struve Carter