Difficult Goals Lead to Higher Achievement
A simple and quick strategy that demonstrates a high effect size on student achievement is to ask students to set a challenging goal for themselves. Consider passing out an index card to each of your students and asking them to state a difficult or challenging goal they want to reach on their final exam. Or begin next semester with goal-setting and periodically ask students to revisit their goals.
The key words here are challenging and difficult. Asking students to set a goal to “do their best does” not show a positive effect on achievement.
John Hattie’s analysis of multiple research studies reveals an effect size of .56 (anything above .20 begins to show a positive effect. Anything .80 or above is extremely effective and rare). Hattie states, “The performances of the students who have the most challenging goals are over 250% higher than the performances of the subjects with the easiest goals” (Visible Learning, p. 164).
A simple and quick strategy that demonstrates a high effect size on student achievement is to ask students to set a challenging goal for themselves. Consider passing out an index card to each of your students and asking them to state a difficult or challenging goal they want to reach on their final exam. Or begin next semester with goal-setting and periodically ask students to revisit their goals.
The key words here are challenging and difficult. Asking students to set a goal to “do their best does” not show a positive effect on achievement.
John Hattie’s analysis of multiple research studies reveals an effect size of .56 (anything above .20 begins to show a positive effect. Anything .80 or above is extremely effective and rare). Hattie states, “The performances of the students who have the most challenging goals are over 250% higher than the performances of the subjects with the easiest goals” (Visible Learning, p. 164).
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