Student-teacher goal alignment

Previous research has shown that students and teachers do not necessarily have identically aligned goals for a given course. However, our knowledge of the effects of such a lack of student-teacher goal alignment is still incomplete. Through comparing L2 Chinese students’ (N = 93) rankings of course goals against their teachers,’ we examined how goal alignment might influence students’ perceptions of and interactions with their teachers. We also examined the effects of goal alignment on student motivation and explored an important mediating factor that connects the two. The results showed a significant correlation between student-teacher goal alignment and the students’ perceptions of teacher instrumentality, as well as frequency of interaction outside of the classroom. A correlation between goal alignment and student motivation was also identified. Moreover, teacher instrumentality was found to have certain explanatory power for such a correlation.

前人研究发现，即使是同一班级的师生对课程所要实现的目标的看法也不尽相同。但是，我们尚不清楚这种看法上的差异是否会对教学产生影响。本研究以在美国某高校学习汉语的学生为研究对象，通过比较其学习目标与任课老师教学目标的差异，探究师生目标一致性对于学生对老师的看法以及师生互动的影响。九十三名不同汉语水平的学生参加了此研究。结果显示，目标的一致程度可以预测学生对教师的评价（有用性）、师生之间的互动频率以及学生的学习动机强度。而且，教师有用性能够部分解释目标一致性和学习动机之间的关系。