Relationship between achievement goals and attention of university instructors in higher education professional training courses
Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning
ISSN: 2042-3896
Article publication date: 2 November 2020
Issue publication date: 10 August 2021
Abstract
Purpose
Professional training courses play an important role for higher education instructors and their teaching quality. However, participants strongly differ in how much they learn in these courses. The present study seeks to explain these differences by focusing on attention as a central aspect of their behavioral engagement that can stem from participants' achievement motivations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors investigated the attention of participants in full-day higher education professional training courses and how differences therein are associated with their achievement goals. Prior to course participation, 117 university instructors (49.6% male, 79.5% with PhD, average age 31.4 years) reported their achievement goals. Using an adapted observational instrument (Hommel, 2012a), two raters subsequently observed and coded the participants' attention during the course (ICC2 = 0.83).
Findings
The results documented very high attention levels, although with substantial interindividual differences. Multilevel analyses indicated that learning goals positively and work avoidance goals negatively predicted observed attention.
Originality/value
The findings provide insight into the value of an observational approach to measuring a fundamental aspect of learning engagement, and contribute to the understanding of interindividual differences in an important higher education learning environment. The study illuminates the relevance of personal predictors for university instructors' successful learning. Specifically, the findings point to the significance of goals as a relevant, but surprisingly hitherto uninvestigated, premise of learning engagement.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Christian Eibl and Susanne Reeß for their help in conducting the study, and Raven Rinas for her help in proofreading the paper.Author contributions: Markus Dresel and Martin Daumiller conceived of the presented idea. Benjamin Kücherer, Markus Dresel, and Martin Daumiller planned the study. Benjamin Kücherer was in charge of data collection and had full access to all the data in the study and takes full responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Benjamin Kücherer and Martin Daumiller drafted the article. Markus Dresel and Martin Daumiller provided critical revision of the article for important intellectual content. Markus Dresel and Martin Daumiller provided administrative, technical, and material support. All authors approved of the version to be published.The research reported in this article was supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemein-schaft; DFG): Grant DR 454/8-1 awarded to Markus Dresel.
Citation
Kücherer, B., Dresel, M. and Daumiller, M. (2021), "Relationship between achievement goals and attention of university instructors in higher education professional training courses", Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 860-873. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-05-2020-0075
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited