ED396440 EA027679
Title: School Reform and the Transition to Middle School.
Author(s): Anderman, Eric M.; And Others
Pages: 36
Publication Date: April 1996
Notes: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational
Research Association (New York, NY, April 8-12, 1996).
Available from: EDRS Price MF01/PC02 Plus Postage.
Language: English
Document Type: Reports--Research (143); Speeches/meeting papers (150)
Geographic Source: U.S.; Kentucky
Journal Announcement: RIENOV1996
This paper
presents findings of a study that used goal orientation theory as
a guiding framework for a collaborative effort with middle school
principals, teachers, and parents over a 3-year period. The intervention
sought to change policies and practices so that they would reflect
more of a task-goal orientation and less of an ability-goal orientation.
The study assessed students' perceptions of the goal emphases in
their classrooms; their personal orientation to task, ability, and
extrinsic goals; their reported use of deep processing strategies;
and their academic efficacy beliefs in mathematics and English 1
year before the transition to middle school and again at the end
of the sixth and seventh grades in both the "demonstration"
school and a comparison school. Fifth-grade students scheduled to
attend the demonstration school and students scheduled to attend
the comparison school demonstrated no differences on any of the
measures. After the transition, students in the demonstration school
exhibited a more positive profile of personal goals, efficacy beliefs,
and perceptions of the classroom goal structure than did students
in the comparison school. Results are discussed in terms of implications
for middle school reform and with regard to the use of goal-orientation
theory to guide school reform efforts. Five figures and four tables
are included. (Contains 71 references.) (LMI)
Descriptors: Analysis of Variance; Educational Change; Goal Orientation;
Intermediate Grades; Junior High Schools; *Middle Schools; Student
Attitudes; *Student Motivation; Student School Relationship; Student
Surveys
