Examination of student´s motivational beliefs and faculty´s role

Students come to universities with different goal orientations and therefore have different needs. Identifying varying orientation approaches, by highlighting differentiating traits, is a necessary step for developing a curriculum that will challenge and develop all students. This paper focuses specifically on three goal orientations which are performance approach, performance avoid, and mastery approach. This study explored these orientations using a mixed methods approach of quantitative surveys of seventeen students followed by qualitative interviews of five students. The Pittsburgh Freshman Engineering Survey was selected as the survey tool, and questions demonstrating qualities of different goal orientations were identified. The survey results identified the primary goal orientation for each student. The students with the strongest orientation in each category were identified, and some of these were subsequently interviewed. From the interview summaries and literature research, recommendations were developed for meeting the needs of the three goal orientations. While the recommendations specifically target the junior level Energy Lab at our university, they can be applied much more broadly.