INQUIRY PROJECT

Inquiry Project on Student-Created Goals

Beth Stone
University of Florida

INQUIRY PROJECT

Purpose
My inquiry project focuses on exploring the impact of student-made goals on productivity
and engagement while completing individualized tasks. I thought about researching this topic in
the classroom after engaging in daily goal-setting myself. I began a daily journal during my
student teacher internship. Each morning over coffee, I would thoughtfully write down one thing
I wanted to do or accomplish for myself and/or others. I found that taking time to reflect and plan
out my day through writing helped me become more aware of how I spent time and interacted
with others. I noticed this was something my tenth grade students struggled with. They often
turned in assignments days, weeks and months later. Many of my students expressed they
experienced high levels of stress when starting major assignments that it would often abet them
turning it in on time and receiving poor grades. I recognized this as an area I could help them
improve during my student-teacher internship. Studies show positive effects on performance
when individual set goals (Azevedo, Ragan, Cromley, & Pritchett, 2002; Tubbs, 1986, as cited in
Griffee & Templi, 1997). Researcher call this finding the participatory goal theory, which
emphasizes when students choose their own goals, they perform at higher levels than students
who have goals set for them (Moeller, Aleidine J.; Theiler, Janine M.; and Wu, Chaorong,
2012). By building my students executive function skills in this area, I wanted to promote
student success in our English Language Arts (ELA) classroom.
During my internship, I created activities that encouraged students to take responsibility in
their learning. Students selected or created individualized assignments according to their interests
and learning styles that were based on the unit objectives and learning goals. While this did
increase student engagement in doing an assignment, I noticed the majority of my students
struggled to get started on the assignment without distracting themselves or others. I recognized

INQUIRY PROJECT

that their behavior was an effect of their educational experiences in a school culture that allowed
late work. However, this behavior was negatively impacting their success in not only ELA, but
also their other classes. After witnessing improvements in my own productivity and motivation
from journaling daily goals, I wondered how implementing this same strategy in the classroom
would affect my students attitudes and behaviors to start and sustain independent work.
Data Sources and Methods
I decided to conduct a focus study for this inquiry project. I observed, recorded and analyzed
the working behaviors of six tenth grade students. I wanted to collect a sample of data from a
population that was representative of my classroom, in terms of race, gender, learning style and
ability. I wanted to see if setting self-made goals would help all types of learners. For my
population, I selected two students who typically need additional support throughout lessons, two
intermediate level students, and two advanced students to observe and survey.
I observed students work habits and behaviors during the last three weeks of my internship.
Students were given 4 full class periods (~100 minutes) to work independently on their 4-part
unit project (see attachments). At the start of each of class, I asked students to write one goal for
the days independent work period and one behavior that would help them achieve this goal. The
first time I asked students to engage in creating self-made goals, I orally modeled an example for
them. I said, My goal is to read 2 chapters from the book and complete 5 annotations on the
annotation handout. I will reach my goal by listening to music to stay focused. I will also use
sticky notes while I read to mark important passages that could be used for my annotations.
Students then wrote their own academic and behavior goal for the particular class period on
paper. Before beginning their projects, students turned in this goal to me for review. Once I read
over and approved students goals, they could begin working independently. I recorded my six

INQUIRY PROJECT

participants goals in a handwritten observation chart. I also took note of their behaviors and
conduct over three independent work periods on this chart. At the end of my student teaching, I
asked students to briefly reflect and assess the impact of creating individualized goals during
project work periods in a Google form survey. I collected and recorded the six participants
responses. I analyzed both my observation notes and survey responses through a multi-step
process. First, I began by reading my data without making any written comments. I repeated this
process a second time. Then, I re-examined the data for a third time, highlighting and making
notes for patterns in the type of language participants used in crafting their goals, as well as the
different observed behaviors that contributed or obstructed their productivity and engagement
during independent work time.
Limitations
Some limitations to this inquiry project included time and the type of data collected. I
conducted my research over a four-week period, while students were working on their
independent final unit project. I think it could have been interesting to begin this project earlier.
Students had a similar assignment early on in my student-teacher internship period, where they
had time in class to work independently on a project for their book club unit. Observing students
then could have given me more descriptive data on their work habits before they integrated
personalized goals to direct their study. Similarly, I could have used different methods to collect
data from the students I observed. I relied on my own observations and student surveys for this
inquiry project. I could have conducted student interviews, which may have given me more
insight on the impact of individualize-goal setting activities on students work behaviors.
Overarching patterns

INQUIRY PROJECT

After reviewing my data, I noticed several patterns emerge. I began by looking closely at the
language students used in creating their academic and behavioral goals. I noticed first noticed
how all students initial academic goals were extremely vague. The students created goals like
Student E, whos goal was to get part A done. Students goals were missing actionable,
measurable and time-framed features that are essential to constructing effective and attainable
goals. Analyzing this data, I began to think about how I instructed students in creating their
individual goals. I only provided students with an oral modeling of my own. This was not
enough for my students, who never engaged in this type of activity before. Looking back, I
would have scaffold how to make a purposeful and effective goal by facilitating a brainstorming
discussion with students. I would ask students about their prior experience writing goals and
what features are essential in effective goals. We could have even talked about excellent, okay
and bad examples of goals. Based on student responses, perhaps we could have come up with a
formula or checklist for self-made goals, like the SMART method (Effective Goal Setting,
2012). This additional instruction could have supported students goal writing and positive work
behaviors sooner.
Another pattern I found within my observation notes was how students initial behavior goals
all used words with negative connotations, like avoid and not. In Positive Academic
Leadership, author Jeffery Buller stresses how negative words like not and prefixes like un-',
in-', and non-', undermine goals success. Buller emphasizes that positively worded goals bring
about change more effectively than negatively worded as they create a sense of urgency, vital to
facilitating cooperative work behaviors (Buller, 2013). I saw this to be true in my own
observations of students. The data shows a strong positive correlation between engaged student
productivity and positively framed behavior goals. By the third observation, all behavior goals

INQUIRY PROJECT

were written using action words with positive connotations. This third observation also happened
to by the most productive day, where all students achieved their individual learning goals. When
students wrote out positive actions that worked with their independent learning styles, I also
noticed a decrease in classroom management issues. If a student were ever off task, I would just
speak with the student and ask them to take a look at their behavior goal and think about what
they could do to help them refocus on their work. Students became accountable for not just their
behaviors, but also their role in learning within the classroom.
Over the observation periods, I saw that students goals became more specific. By the second
and third observation, students began to create goals with specific language in terms of actions,
or what they planned to do and how they were going to achieve it. For example, Student B in the
second observation develops a specific list of actions in her goal stating, [I will] find a Rumi
poem, read it, analyze it, and write an outline for [my] essay [today]. Explicitly clear goals
provide students with an organized framework to get started on their work. In fact, the data
indicates a strong positive correlation between specific goals and increased individual work
behaviors. So what changed? How did my students begin writing specific, measurable and
actionable goals? After each independent work block, students self-assessed their goals and inclass work time. Students were asked to reflect on questions like, Did you meet your goal? If
so, how? List the ways., How did you use your class time? Estimate the amount of time you
spent working, socializing, and taking a stretch break., What helped you work today?, What
distracted you from working? , and How can you use your time more effectively next class? I
believe having students engage in this metacognitive assessment of their work habits helped
them develop more specific goals for the second and third observations.
Implications

INQUIRY PROJECT

As a future teacher, I value giving students choice in their learning and opportunities to
develop their interests through creative activities. I recognize that when I create this type of
student-centered classroom, my role as a teacher is to help build my students ability to
effectively work independently and take ownership of their educational choices. This inquiry
project has taught me a lot about how I can support students to achieve their individual goals.
Through my observations, I found that encouraging students to engage in pre-work planning, like
semantic webbing or outlining ideas, can help students feel less anxious and more prepared to
start their work. I have also discovered that listening to music can increase student focus on
independent work. Most importantly, I learned that when creating a student-centered ELA
classroom, it is just as important to give students time to collaborate with peers, as it is to work
independently. I noted that students would frequently talk to each other during independent work
time. Sometimes this interaction was productive, where students would give each other feedback
on their ideas and writing. Other times, their talk was off-topic and simply socialization.
However, I noticed that when limited to a short amount of time (~5 minutes), both types of talk
increased productive work behaviors. An average teenager is unable to sustain attention longer
than 20 minutes, unless they choose to refocus on the same task (Dukette & Cornish, 2009). A
study at the University of Illinois chose to individuals attention span and the effect breaks on
productivity. The studys results support that deactivating and reactivating your goals allows
you to stay focused (Brief diversions vastly improve focus, researchers find, 2011). This
research and my own observations in the inquiry project show me that it is important to
encourage students to take brief breaks while working independently as it aides their attainment
of individualized goals.

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In terms of the future, I plan to engage in a conversation about setting goals and individual
work habits with my students. I realized through my project the terms productivity and
engagement have arbitrary definitions. I plan to discuss with my students what these words
mean to us as a class. What does it mean to be productive? Engaged? What does it look like?
Together, I hope for us to brainstorm and write out specific characteristics and behaviors for
productivity and engagement on a class poster. I think this discussion activity will help students
understand their role during independent work time.
After completing this inquiry project, I several new questions that come to mind. How can I
support my students recognize when to take a break and when to end a break? What are healthy
and productive types of breaks? Most importantly, how can I promote students to set goals not
just in our classroom, but also beyond?

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9
References

Azevedo, R., Ragan, S., Cromley, J., & Pritchett, S. (2002). Do different goal-setting conditions
facilitate students ability to regulate their learning of complex science topics with River
Web? Retrieved from ERIC database (ED482509).
Buller, J. L. (2013). Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series : Positive Academic
Leadership : How to Stop Putting out Fires and Begin Making a Difference. Somerset,
NJ, USA: Wiley. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Dianne Dukette; David Cornish (2009). The Essential 20: Twenty Components of an Excellent
Health Care Team. RoseDog Books. pp. 7273. ISBN 1-4349-9555-0
Griffee, D. T., & Templi, S. A. (1997). Goal setting affects task performance. Retrieved from
ERIC database (ED413782).
Moeller, Aleidine J.; Theiler, Janine M.; and Wu, Chaorong, "Goal Setting and Student
Achievement: A Longitudinal Study" (2012). Faculty Publications: Department of
Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education. Paper 159.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. (2011, February 8). Brief diversions vastly improve
focus, researchers find. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 22, 2016 from
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110208131529.htm