Examining the relationships between students' implicit theories of ability, goal orientations and the preferred type of augmented feedback.

Li, Weidong ; Solmon, Melinda A. ; Lee, Amelia M. 等

Using a cognitive mediational paradigm (Doyle, 1977; Lee & Solmon, 1992) as a framework, the role of the teacher, rather than being a transmitter of information, is characterized as structuring the learning environment in such a way that individuals in the class will think and act in ways that enable them to learn. Providing feedback to students as they learn motor skills has been identified as an important variable in the teaching and learning process (Magill, 2000), but research that has investigated the role of feedback in physical education classes has not produced consistent findings (Lee, Keh, & Magill, 1993). It is important to learn more about how teachers can effectively use feedback to create learning environments that will enable students to learn, and the focus of this study is to use achievement goal theory as a framework to investigate students' preferences for teacher feedback.

Achievement Goal Theory

Achievement goal theory has dominated research in motivation in sport and exercise over the last decade (Roberts, 2001). Goal theory (Nicholls, 1989) assumes that individuals enter achievement settings with the desire to demonstrate competence, and asserts the existence of two dimensions of goals, task and ego. Individuals who have task goals demonstrate competence through personal improvement and/or mastery of a task, while individuals who have ego goals demonstrate competence through means of social comparison. Consequently, when goals are ego-involved, the only way for an individual to be successful is by outperforming others. When an individual has task goals, however, success is internally referenced according to personal improvement rather than being defined in reference to others.

Individuals enter achievement settings with dispositions towards different goals, but there is evidence that teachers can manipulate the class environment to foster either task or ego-involved goals (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Solmon, 1996). There is considerable support in the literature (see Biddle, 2001; Roberts, 2001; Treasure, 2001 for reviews) for the notion that a task-involved environment is preferable to an ego-involved environment, as students in task climates demonstrate a more adaptive pattern of behavior. That is, they are more likely to exert effort, persist in the face of difficulty, and select challenging tasks. With that established, identifying ways in which teachers can foster a task-involved climate becomes an important line of research. Several researchers have used a series of structures developed by Epstein (1989) outlined by the acronym TARGET (Task, Authority, Recognition, Grouping, Evaluation, and Timing) in intervention studies designed to foster task-involvement (Solmon, 1996; Theeboom, DeKnop, & Weiss, 1995; Treasure & Roberts, 2001), but there has been very little focus on how teachers can use feedback to foster a task climate.

Feedback

Task- and ego-involved climates promote different patterns of information seeking (Butler, 1992, 1993). Under task-involved climates, people seek information that will conform to their goal of learning and mastering a task. On the other hand, people in ego-involved climates are in favor of social comparison information. A series of studies by Butler have demonstrated that the kinds of information students seek are dependent on their goal orientations (1992, 1993) and conceptions of ability (1999, 2000). Students with entity views of ability were more likely to favor normative feedback which provides evaluative information about their ability relative to others. In contrast, those with incremental views of ability were more attentive to temporal feedback related to their personal improvement and mastery.

The nature of feedback that teachers provide in physical education classes is typically identified as an important variable in the creation of the class climate (Lee, et al., 1993), but much remains to be learned about how physical education teachers can use feedback effectively. Silverman, Woods, and Subramaniam (1998) investigated the motivational role of augmented feedback in skill acquisition. The amount of time that students engaged in practice during class was related to the appropriateness of the feedback provided by the teachers. This suggests that feedback is an important construct in the motivational climate, but there has been little investigation into how feedback should be structured in physical education classes.

Augmented feedback, defined as feedback provided by external sources such as teachers, can take on many forms and variations. One major facet of feedback is whether the feedback focuses on the outcome of a trial, referred to as knowledge of results (KR), or whether the feedback focuses on the qualitative aspects of the skill attempt, which is typically labeled knowledge of the performance (KP) (Magill, 2000). The informational effect of augmented feedback upon learning and performance in laboratory settings has been established in the motor learning literature (Salmoni, Schmidt, & Walter, 1984; Magill, 2000). The research findings indicate that the amount, content, frequency, precision, and type of augmented feedback provided are critical elements in skill acquisition, and manipulation of these variables can result in different learning outcomes.

The relationship between goal orientation and preferences for types of information or feedback was investigated in a two-part study by Cury, Sarrazin, and Famose (1997). They involved boys in a basketball task, and gave them the opportunity to request various types of information. Objective information was operationalized as information concerning the previous trial, so individuals who requested that information were interested in referencing their subsequent performance to their previous score. Normative information was defined as information about the relative level of performance in relation to a reference group. Task-oriented boys were more likely to request objective information, while ego-involved boys sought out normative information when they had a high perception of ability, but did not seek information when the perception of ability was low.

Implicit Theories of Ability

Beliefs about the innate or acquired nature of ability, conceptualized by Dweck (1999) as implicit theories of ability, is a framework that has strong links to goal theory. An entity theory of ability reflects the belief that capacity is a stable factor that cannot be altered, while an incremental theory of ability represents the belief that capacity can be increased with effort. Task-involvement is associated with an incremental theory of ability, while ego-involvement is linked to an entity theory of ability. An incremental theory is reflective of a more adaptive motivational pattern than an entity theory, because individuals with an incremental view of ability believe in the efficacy of effort to improve capacity. Those who hold an entity view are at risk to withdraw effort, especially when the perception of ability is low. If they believe that ability is the major influence on performance, and that ability cannot be improved with effort, then there is little reason to exert effort. Sarrazin et al. (1996) investigated the relationship between goal orientations and the children's conceptions of the nature of sport ability, and the results that they report are generally consistent with theoretical predictions. In their study involving 11 and 12 year old children, a task orientation was associated with an incremental view of athletic ability, while an ego orientation was related to an entity theory, or that athletic ability was a gift.

Although these findings with regard to normative and objective information seeking are consistent with predictions and suggest that the study of information seeking is a viable way to learn more about how to create task-involved climates, to date there is no information concerning the relationships between goal orientations, implicit theories of ability, and outcome and performance related aspects of augmented feedback. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between goal orientations, implicit theories of ability, and the type of augmented feedback individuals prefer when trying to learn a skill, with the goal of learning more about how teachers can use feedback to create a task-involved climate. Based on these theoretical perspectives, predictions were that a task-involved goal orientation and an incremental theory of ability would be associated with a preference for feedback that focuses on the qualitative aspects of the task (KP), while an ego-involved goal orientation and an entity theory of ability would be associated with a preference for outcome related feedback (KR).

Method

Participants

The participants in this study were 115 college students (55 males and 60 females) in the southeastern United States enrolled in beginning tennis classes taught by six different instructors. The students' ages ranged from 18 to 47 years (M=21.58, SD=4.17). Informed consent was obtained from all the participants.

Instrumentation

Goal orientations. A modified version of the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire (TEOSQ; Duda & Whitehead, 1998; Walling & Duda, 1995) was used to assess the students' goal orientations. The 16-item measure includes two independent variables: ego orientation (8 items) and task orientation (8 items). The stem for all items was "I feel really successful in tennis class when ..." "I beat others" is an item that represents an ego orientation, whereas the item "I learn a new skill by trying hard" reflects a task orientation. The response scale is a 5-point liken-like scale ranging from "strongly disagree" (1) to "strongly agree" (5). The TEOSQ has been shown to be valid and reliable for measuring goal orientations (Duda & Whitehead, 1998, for a review; Walling & Duda, 1995). The internal-consistency coefficients (Cronbach Alpha's) for the present study were 0.85 and 0.90 for task and ego goal orientations, respectively.

Implicit theories of ability. The Conceptions of the Nature of Athletic Ability Questionnaire (CNAAQ; Biddle, Wang, Chatzisarantis, & Spray, 2003), was adapted to be specific for this study to assess students' conceptions of ability in tennis. It consists of twelve 5-point likert-type items, with six items reflecting an incremental theory and six items indicative of an entity theory. The item "you need to have a certain 'gift' to be good at tennis" represents an entity theory of ability, whereas the item "in tennis, if you work hard at it, you will always get better" reflects an incremental theory of ability. The response scale ranges from "strongly disagree" (1) to "strongly agree" (5). The CNAAQ has demonstrated adequate psychometric properties (Biddle et al., 2003) and the internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach Alpha's) for the present study were 0.76 and 0.72 for the entity and incremental theories of ability, respectively

Feedback preferences. A questionnaire was designed to assess participants' preferences for type of augmented feedback. Based on a review of the literature (Magill, 2000; Zubiaur, Ona, & Delgado, 1999), the investigators generated a list of 16 potential items that reflected a preference for either performance-oriented (KP) or outcome-oriented feedback (KR). Potential items were piloted with selected college students to verify that the items were appropriately worded, that the intent of the questions was clear, and that the response scale would generate a range of responses. Based on the pilot, appropriate revisions were made to the items. An expert in motor learning was used to check the face validity and agreed on the final 12-item scale using a 5-point response scale with the following choices: not valuable, a little valuable, valuable, pretty valuable, and extremely valuable. The stem for the items was "When trying to improve my tennis forehand, after each trial I like to get information about.... "Seven items reflected a preference for outcome related feedback (KR), while five items were indicative of a preference for performance related feedback (KP). An example of an outcome statement is "How difficult it was for my partner to return the ball I hit." "Whether or not my swing was level" is an example of a performance-related statement. The unbalanced number of items for KR and KP were kept due to the criteria of face validity. No strong evidence has been documented in the literature, showing that asymmetrical items would affect the probability of results, especially with a difference of one item between KP and KR for the present study.

Data Collection

Data were collected in tennis classes. The primary investigator administered the instruments to the students. At the beginning, the purpose and significance of this study were explained to the participants. Participants were told that there were no right or wrong answers, and that it was very important to read the statements carefully before they completed the items. Participants were instructed to ask questions about any item they did not understand. It took participants about 15 minutes to complete all the questionnaires.

Data Analysis

An exploratory factor analysis using a varimax rotation was conducted on the augmented feedback preference questionnaire to verify the construct validity of the instrument. To facilitate comparison across subscales, means and standard deviations for each subscale were calculated by dividing the sum of the subscale scores by the number of items on that subscale. Relationships between the subscales of implicit theories of ability, goal orientations, and augmented feedback were assessed using Pearson Product Moment Coefficients.

Results

The exploratory factor analysis on the augmented feedback scale revealed a two-factor structure. The seven items that loaded on the first factor reflected a preference for outcome-based feedback, and that subscale was labeled KR. Five items emphasizing a preference for feedback focused on the qualitative aspects of the skill loaded on the second factor, which was labeled as the KP subscale. The variance explained by the two factors was 56.5% and 43.5%, respectively. The items for each subscale and the factor loadings are presented in Table 1. The internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach Alpha's) for the present study were 0.89 and 0.86 for KR and KP, respectively

Descriptive statistics for the six subscales were calculated and are reported in Table 2. All reliability coefficients were deemed acceptable. Inspection of the means indicates that individuals in this study tended to have higher levels of task involvement as compared to ego involvement, and hold stronger incremental, as compared to entity, theories of ability. A slight preference for outcome, as opposed to performance feedback was evident.

The correlation matrix for the pattern of relationships between goal orientations, implicit theories of ability, and preference for feedback is reported in Table 2, and is generally consistent with theoretical predictions. Task orientation was positively associated with an incremental theory of ability, but negatively related to an entity theory. Ego orientation, however, was not significantly related to either implicit theory of ability. A task orientation was positively related to both KP and KR preferences, but the magnitude of the coefficients indicates a stronger preference for KP than KR. An ego orientation was positively related to outcome preference (KR) but unrelated to a preference for KP. An entity theory of ability was negatively associated with preference for KP, but there were no significant relationships between an incremental theory of ability and preference for either KR or KP.

Discussion

The results of this study, consistent with theoretical predictions (Dweck, 1999; Nicholls, 1989) and previous research, support the contention that a task orientation is associated with an adaptive pattern of motivational cognitions. Task-oriented individuals were more likely to express the belief that ability can be improved with effort, and to discount the notion of ability as a constant capacity that cannot be improved. This finding is consistent with results reported by Sarrazin et al. (1996), who also reported a relationship between incremental theories of ability and a task orientation in a sport context. Findings also indicated that students high in task orientation valued feedback about the qualitative aspects of the skill, rather than simply focusing on the outcome, or KR. Cury et al., (1997) reported an association between a task orientation and a preference for information relative to their own performance as compared to normative information on a dribbling task, and our findings are consistent with the rationale presented in that study. Our study adds to the knowledge base in this regard, however, in that we examined the nature and content of preferred feedback. Cury and colleagues focused on the reference point for comparative information rather than the content of the feedback.

It was predicted that an ego orientation would be associated with an entity theory of ability, and that relationship did not emerge in the data. That an ego orientation was not associated with an entity theory of ability may be a function of the different conceptualizations of performance/ego goal orientation (Lochbaum, Bixby, Lutz, Parsons, & Akerhielm, 2006). In the research literature, performance/ego goal orientations have been conceptualized as either self-esteem or normative evaluation contingent. The ego orientation measure, used in the present study, focused participants on normative comparisons (e.g., "I feel most successful in tennis class when I beat others"); Whereas the measurement of performance/ego goal orientations in Dweck and Leggett (1988) social and cognitive model is contingent on self-esteem (e.g., "I 'd like problems that are hard enough to show that I am smart;" "I'd like problems that are not too hard, so I don't get many wrong"). Therefore, the measurement of ego goal orientations in the present study did not fit Dweck's model well (Lochbaum et al., 2006).

The prediction, that ego-involvement would be associated with a preference for KR rather than KP, was supported. This is consistent with the findings reported by Cury et al. (1997), where ego-involved participants sought normative information concerning their performance, especially when the perception of ability was high. Our findings extend the knowledge base by providing information about the content of the feedback. A focus on outcome rather than performance-based feedback has the potential to inhibit skill learning. Specifically, if for instance in tennis, individuals are concerned only about where the ball lands in the court, at the expense of receiving feedback about the quality movement pattern, they may be unable to improve the movement pattern that will ultimately enable them to successfully execute the skill. A practical application for physical education practitioners and teachers is to focus students on the process rather than the performance outcome, thus enhancing their motivation to be actively engaged in physical education.

Although preliminary in nature, the findings from this investigation suggest that teacher feedback could be an important variable to be used in the development of strategies to promote task-involvement in physical education. The relationships between the variables suggest that feedback about the qualitative aspects of the skill, rather than feedback that focuses only on the outcome, is associated with a task orientation and an incremental theory of ability, while outcome-based feedback is associated with an ego orientation and an entity theory of ability. The correlational design of the study does not establish whether or not the type of feedback presented by a teacher can elicit a task orientation, but the results do suggest that performance rather than outcome-based feedback is consistent with a task orientation. Our study, taken together with the Cury et al. (1997) investigation, suggests that the nature of feedback provided to students could be an important variable in the creation of a task-involved climate. To more clearly understand the impact that feedback can have, further study is needed. The correlational research to date supports the design of experimental studies where researchers manipulate the nature of the feedback in a controlled setting to determine if performance as opposed to outcome feedback is an influential element in the creation of a task-involved climate.

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Weidong Li

The University of Memphis

Melinda A. Solmon and Amelia M. Lee

Louisiana State University

Grace Purvis

Nicholls State University

Hongnan Chu

Southeastern Louisiana Univerity

Address correspondence to: Weidong Li, Ph.D., 106 Elma Neal Roane Fieldhouse, Department of Health & Sport Sciences, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152, Phone: 901-678-5437, Fax: 901-678-3591, Email: [email protected] Table 1. Rotated Factor Pattern for Augmented Feedback Preferences Item KR KP When trying to improve my tennis forehand, after each trial I like to get information about ... How difficult it was for my partner to return the ball I hit .70 .07 How hard the ball was hit .72 .13 How close the ball was to the net .75 .20 How deep into the court the ball landed .77 .29 The amount of spin I was able to put on the ball .75 .28 How close to the sideline the ball landed .84 .20 The amount of deception I was able to create for my partner .82 .06 Whether or not my contact point was correct .07 .78 Whether or not my swing was level .12 .82 Whether or not my back swing and racket preparation were correct .11 .86 The quality of my step pattern .29 .75 The quality of my follow through .31 .70 Variance explained by each factor 56.5% 43.5% Table 2. Means, Standard Deviations, Alpha Coefficients, and Correlation Coefficients for Subscales Task Ego Entity Incremental Task Orientation Ego Orientation .26 * Entity Theory of Ability -.25 * .08 Incremental Theory of Ability .22 * .09 -.14 Knowledge of Results .24 * .29 * -.09 .10 Knowledge of Performance .42 * .05 -.29 * .13 Mean 4.09 3.05 2.18 3.82 Standard Deviation .54 0.87 .61 .64 Subscales KR KP Task Orientation Ego Orientation Entity Theory of Ability Incremental Theory of Ability Knowledge of Results Knowledge of Performance .44 * Mean 3.76 3.37 Standard Deviation 0.78 .88 * p < .01