ABSTRACT
Much of the work on conceptual change emphasizes the importance of considering students’ prior knowledge as either a facilitating or constraining factor in the development of new understandings (Strike & Posner, 1992). That is, in order to understand the emergence of a refined conceptual understanding, researchers and educators must consider not only the context in which the new information is learned, but also what the learner “brings” to the situation. What is largely missing from this account, however, is the motivational orientation of the learner (Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993). The consideration of students’ prior conceptions as well as their motivational orientation seems key to understanding when and why conceptual change occurs. Indeed, a number of researchers studying conceptual change have pointed to students’ beliefs about their competence as well as their attitudes toward learning as important for understanding conceptual change processes (e.g., Pintrich, 1999; Pintrich et al., 1993; Sinatra & Dole, 1998; Strike & Posner, 1992). In this chapter, we consider the role of motivation in the conceptual change process, focusing specifically on how achievement goals relate to intentional conceptual change. Before we begin a detailed discussion of the relationship of achievement goals to intentional conceptual change, we first discuss what we mean by intentional conceptual change as well as how we define student motivation in terms of achievement goals.
