Student Goal Setting to Improve Educational Outcomes

Mrs Jenny Pollock | Deputy Curriculum | Grammar News |18 February 2022

As students embark upon their learning journeys in 2022, I encourage parents to reflect with their children on their learning achievements in 2021 and to help their children set new learning goals for 2022.

Recent research by Professor Andrew Martin and his team at the University of NSW investigated the impact of goal setting to improve academic achievement in school students. The research revealed that students who undertook goal setting were more engaged in learning activities at school than students who did not set goals. This followed from previous research by Professor Martin which found that goal setting resulted in increased student engagement and achievement in students with ADHD.

The recent study involved 61,879 high school students from 290 schools across NSW, with equal numbers of boys and girls being surveyed. The results showed that students who set self-improvement goals achieved significant gains in perseverance, aspirations and positive homework behaviour. Setting self-improvement goals also had a significant positive impact for students with lower prior achievement. Professor Martin indicates that setting personal progress goals is motivational.

References
Martin.A. et al. 2021. Growth Goal Setting in High School: A Large-Scale Study of Perceived Instructional Support, Personal Background Attributes, and Engagement Outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology. June 2021.
Martin,A. 2012.The role of Personal Best (PB) goals in the achievement and behavioural engagement of students with ADHD and students without ADHD. April 2012. Contemporary Educational Psychology. 37(2):91–105