EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter 7, page 135

Problem 7.2 Understanding students’ thinking: Product versus product

goals

Ami Sherman is a high school English teacher who also coaches the girls’

basketball team. She has three basketball team players in her junior-level

American literature class, and she is curious about whether these three

students set process or product goals both in her class and in basketball. She

asks each student about what their goals are as (a) they approach their next

composition and (b) they approach their next game. The table below shows

what each student said:

Student Response to the question

about goals for the next

composition

Response to the question

about goals for the next game

Dhriti “I really want to get an A- on

my next paper because that

would give me a B+ average

for the year.”

“I want to get double digits in

scoring for the next game. I

got really close the last game,

and I want to make it this

time.”

Chantoya “I’m working on writing better

thesis statements, so I’m

hoping that for this next

paper, I can come up with a

good, arguable thesis

statement and then hopefully

the rest of the paper will flow

once I have a good thesis.”

“I want to work on my

shooting technique this game.

The last few games, we played

against weaker teams, so I

scored the same amount of

points as always, but I feel like

I may have formed some bad

habits, so I want to really

focus on correcting that in the

next game.”

Chelsea “I want to get at least a letter

grade higher on this paper

than on my last paper.”

“It’s really an issue of

footwork for the next game. If

I can get my footwork down, I

can improve my defense, and

that’s my focus right now.”

Response: Dhriti expresses product goals for both tasks—a grade for the paper

and a scoring goal for the game. Chantoya sets process goals for both tasks.

For writing, she describes what she needs to work on to make her papers

better, and for basketball, she focuses on her shooting technique rather than

how many points she wants to score. Chelsea expresses a product goal on her

paper (a higher grade); for basketball, she describes a process goal (footwork)

which she sees leading to an important product (better defense).