For failure experiences to be productive for future performance or learning, students must be both willing to persist in the face of failure, and effective in gleaning information from their errors. While there have been extensive advances in understanding the motivational dispositions that drive resilience and persistence in the face of failure, less has been done to investigate what strategies and learning behaviors students can undertake to make those failure experiences productive. This dissertation investigates what kinds of behaviors expert learners (in the form of graduate students) employ when encountering failure that predict future performance (Study 1), and whether such effective behaviors can be provoked in less sophisticated learners (in the form of high school students) that would subsequently lead to deeper learning (Study 2). Study 1 showed that experiencing and responding to failures in an educational electrical circuit puzzle game prior to formal instruction led to deeper learning, and that one particular strategy, “information-seeking and fixing”, was predictive of higher performance. This strategy was decomposed into three metacognitive components: error specification, where the subject made the realization that a knowledge gap or misunderstanding led to the failure; knowledge gap resolution, where the subject sought information to resolve the knowledge gap; and application, where subjects took their newly acquired information to fix their prior error. In Study 2, two types of prompts were added to the educational game: one that provoked students through these metacognitive steps of error specification, information seeking, and fixing, labelled the “Metacognitive Failure Response” (MFR) condition; and a second prompt that provoked students to make a global judgment of knowing, labelled the “Global Awareness” (GA) condition. The results indicated that although there were no significant condition differences between the three groups (MFR, GA, and control condition where participants received no prompt at all), more time spent on the MFR prompt predicted deeper and more robust learning. In contrast, more time spent on the “Global Awareness” prompt did not predict deeper learning, suggesting that individual factors (such as conscientiousness) did not alone account for the benefits of time spent on the MFR prompt on learning. These results suggest that while MFR participants who carefully attended to the metacognitive prompts to specify the source of their errors and seek information experienced learning benefits, not all MFR participants sufficiently attended to the prompts enough to experience learning gains. Altogether, this body of research suggests that using this “error specification, info-seeking, fixing” strategy can be effective for making failure productive, but other instructional techniques beyond system-delivered prompts must be employed for full adoption of this metacognitive response to failure. Implications for teaching students to respond effectively to failure, for games in the classroom, and for design and engineering processes are discussed.

Wan, Chun Ho. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-92). / Abstract also in Chinese; appendix C-G in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.1 / 摘要 --- p.2 / Acknowledges --- p.3 / Table of Contents --- p.4 / List of Tables --- p.6 / List of Figures --- p.7 / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.8 / Chapter 1.1 --- Computer-aided Language Learning (CALL) Review --- p.8 / Chapter 1.2 --- Research Challenges --- p.12 / Chapter 1.3 --- Research Considerations --- p.14 / Chapter 1.4 --- Our Research --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Achievement Accumulation --- p.19 / Chapter 2.1 --- Achievement Motivation --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2 --- Considerations for Language Learning --- p.23 / Chapter 2.3 --- Achievement Accumulation (AA) approach --- p.25 / Chapter 2.4 --- Achievement Retention --- p.30 / Chapter 2.5 --- Research Questions --- p.33 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Vocabulary Building --- p.35 / Chapter 3.1 --- Vocabulary Building --- p.35 / Chapter 3.2 --- Research Design --- p.40 / Chapter 3.3 --- Research Evaluation --- p.51 / Chapter 3.4 --- Preliminary Study --- p.54 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Vocabulary Accumulation --- p.55 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Individual Learning --- p.55 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Retention of Words --- p.56 / Chapter 3.4.4 --- Delay in Revision --- p.57 / Chapter 3.4.5 --- Number of Revisions --- p.58 / Chapter 3.4.6 --- Learning Efficiency --- p.58 / Chapter 3.4.7 --- Achievement Motivation --- p.59 / Chapter 3.4.8 --- Use of Dictionary --- p.60 / Chapter 3.4.9 --- Revision Reminder --- p.60 / Chapter 3.4.10 --- User Survey --- p.61 / Chapter 3.4.11 --- Case Study --- p.62 / Chapter 3.5 --- Discussion --- p.62 / Chapter 3.6 --- Summary --- p.63 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Results and Discussions --- p.65 / Chapter 4.1 --- Comparative Experiment --- p.65 / Chapter 4.2 --- Quantitative Results --- p.68 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Vocabulary Accumulation --- p.68 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Revision Gain --- p.71 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Learning Time Spent and Attempt Made --- p.72 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Retention of Words --- p.73 / Chapter 4.2.5 --- Delay in Revision --- p.73 / Chapter 4.2.6 --- Number of Revisions --- p.74 / Chapter 4.2.7 --- Word Recognition Time --- p.75 / Chapter 4.2.8 --- Achievement Motivation --- p.76 / Chapter 4.2.9 --- Revision Reminder --- p.77 / Chapter 4.3 --- Qualitative Results --- p.78 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Pre-Questionnaire Results --- p.78 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Post-Questionnaire Results --- p.79 / Chapter 4.4 --- Discussion --- p.81 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- Conclusion --- p.84 / Bibliography / Appendix A: Questionnaire in Preliminary Study / Appendix B: Questionnaire Results in Preliminary Study / Appendix C: Pre-Questionnaire in Comparative Study / Appendix D: Post-Questionnaire in Comparative Study / Appendix E: Pre-Questionnaire Results in Comparative Study / Appendix F: Post-Questionnaire Results in Comparative Study / Appendix G: Newspaper Cutting

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Current research on sport motivation has focused primarily on goal perspective approaches in an attempt to understand behavior in achievement situations (Ames, 1984; Nicholls, 1984). According to Nicholls' (1984) theory, the achievement goal orientation an individual develops may be influenced by both individual differences and situational factors. Relative to situational factors, the team motivational climate may promote either a task-involved or an ego-involved orientation dependent upon which goal orientation is emphasized by the coach. In addition, Ames (1992a) argued that environmental structures influence the motivational climate which ultimately impact the athlete's achievement orientation. Educational research (Epstein, 1988) has identified specific environmental structures (TARGET structures) as being salient to the development of a mastery climate. Little research has been conducted on athletes' perceptions of their coaches' behavior, in regard to specific environmental structures, and how this may ultimately influence athletes' achievement goal orientation. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among TARGET structures, team motivational climate, and achievement goal orientation. The subjects consisted of 186 high school softball players and 171 high school baseball players, ranging in age from 14 to 18 years. The TEOSQ, PMCSQ, and TARGET questionnaires were administered to subjects at the beginning of a sport practice. LISREL8, a structural equation modeling program, was the statistical analysis employed. Results indicated that a positive linear relationship existed, linking task and reward/evaluation components of the TARGET structures to mastery climate to task orientation. These two structures may be the most salient structures within a sport setting. This finding suggests there is a positive association between coaches' promotion and employment of task-involved goals in their practices and athletes' perception of a mastery-oriented team motivational climate. Direct relationships linking three TARGET structures to performance climate to ego orientation were also reported. Grouping and authority components of the TARGET structures were found to have a significant inverse relationship with performance climate, while task structure and performance climate were positively related. Additionally, the results confirmed that there was a significant positive relationship between mastery climate and task orientation and between performance climate and ego orientation. / Graduation date: 1995

<p>Despite decades of research attention given to academic underachievement, longitudinal and developmental investigation of this phenomenon has been sparse. To address this shortcoming, the current study used a longitudinal, person-centered approach to identify latent subgroups of growth in the joint development of underachievement and four motivational beliefs (self-concept, task importance, psychological cost value, and self-worth) from first through sixth grade. Two types of underachievement latent classes emerged: one characterized by sustained underachievement and the other by growing underachievement (an Achievement class was also consistently found). Sustained, chronic underachievement was not associated with declines in self-concept or task importance, but was related to moderately lower levels of psychological cost value and self-worth, and was also related to lower middle school academic achievement. Growing underachievement was associated with lower and declining self-concept and task importance. Although differential class membership by gifted status was hypothesized, no such effects were found. Gender effects were found for the Task Importance and Self-Worth models in the hypothesized direction, but this effect was not as robust as in prior research. Findings from the current study build on prior research highlighting heterogeneity among underachieving students.</p> / Dissertation

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 208-223). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Portland State University. Systems Science, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 24, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 162-182).

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