The Role of Achievement Goal Motivation in Self-Explanation and Knowledge Transfer

The Role of Achievement Goal Motivation in Self-Explanation and Knowledge Transfer Daniel M. Belenky (dbelenky@andrew.cmu.edu) Human-Computer Interaction Institute, 2602H Newell Simon Hall, 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA Timothy J. Nokes-Malach (nokes@pitt.edu) Department of Psychology, 818 Learning Research and Development Center, 3939 O’Hara St. Pittsburgh, PA 15260 USA Abstract Self-explanation is an important constructive cognitive process that helps students learn in such a way that they can flexibly transfer their knowledge to solve novel problems (Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989). However, research has not addressed what leads students to spontaneously self-explain, in the absence of prompting. The present study experimentally manipulates student motivation (in terms of achievement goals) and measures what influence this has on self-explanation and transfer. Participants (N = 140) received goal framings that reflected either a mastery- approach goal (striving to develop one’s understanding), a performance-approach goal (an aim to outperform others), a performance-avoidance goal (avoid doing worse than others) or a no-goal control. This framing was applied to a set of learning and test tasks on basic statistics, which participants completed while thinking aloud. Results showed a benefit for a performance-avoidance condition in terms of both higher levels of self-explanation and transfer. This unexpected result is discussed in terms of theories of motivation and learning, and their potential impact on educational practice. Keywords: Knowledge Transfer, Motivation, Achievement Goals, Self-Explanation, Education Introduction A fundamental goal of instruction is to foster learning which leads to successful, flexible, and useful knowledge transfer. Research and theoretical development which elucidates how knowledge transfers has a long history in psychology and cognitive science, and continues to be important for educational psychologists and learning scientists. Continuing to advance our understanding of what sorts of learning activities lead to transfer allows for recommendations on how to improve educational practices. Evidence has accumulated that a promising method for promoting flexible knowledge transfer is to increase the conceptual quality of the original learning (Pashler et al., 2007). As such, constructive learning processes which promote the acquisition of more abstracted knowledge (e.g., schemas) are likely to promote successful knowledge transfer. A representative example of such a process is self- explanation (Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989), which is the process by which students generate, for themselves, explanations which go beyond the text, inferring underlying principles and highlighting important interrelations. Chi et al. (1989) documented a large difference in the amount and quality of self-explanations between those students who ultimately go on to flexibly transfer their knowledge and those who do not. A number of studies since have documented that students can be prompted to engage in self-explanation (e.g. Aleven & Koedinger, 2002) with beneficial effects for learning and knowledge transfer. However, a fundamental question about self-explanation has been left unaddressed; what leads students to engage in self-explanation, in the absence of prompting? It is clear that some students do so, to their benefit, while others do not. It is also likely that whether students are capable of self-explaining profitably is not the sole limitation, given the experimental literature which shows a benefit for self-explanation prompts. In the present research, we address the possibility that student motivation leads to the spontaneous use of self-explanation during learning, and that this can influence the likelihood of successfully transferring. While Chi et al. (1989) conjectured that higher levels of self-explanation are “a natural consequence of wanting to understand the solution example better” (pg. 160), no research has systematically tested this claim. As we will review in the subsequent section, this sort of motivation has been studied extensively by researchers of “achievement goal theory,” which has documented just such a desire, labeling it a “mastery- approach” goal. The present study leverages achievement goals as a tool for experimentally investigating how motivation influences self-explanation and transfer. Achievement Goal Motivation Achievement goals are the reasons people have for engaging in achievement settings, such as school or work. An achievement setting is one that is organized around one’s competence in a domain, and an achievement goal describes a goal a person has in relation to this competence, such as wanting to use it demonstrate how good they are in this domain, or wanting to develop their competence so that they can complete more challenging work. A large body of research and theory development has led to a generally- accepted framework which proposes three main classes of goals (Elliot, McGregor, & Gable, 1999); mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance. A mastery-approach goal is an aim to improve or develop one’s competence or understanding. A performance-