Carol Midgley’s research while affiliated with University of Notre Dame and other places

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Publications (88)


Changes in Efficacy Beliefs in Mathematics Across the Transition to Middle School: Examining the Effects of Perceived Teacher and Parent Goal Emphases
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  • Full-text available

February 2010

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1,341 Reads

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129 Citations

Jeanne M. Friedel

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Carol Midgley

This study examined the effects of change in teacher goal emphases on students' efficacy beliefs in mathematics across the transition to middle school. The sample (N = 929) included primarily White (65%) and Black (27%) students, and approximately one third received free or reduced-fee lunch. Analyses grouped children by cross-classification of teachers (N = 53 elementary and N = 34 middle school teachers). On average, students' efficacy beliefs remained stable and relatively high across the transition. Compared with their elementary school teacher, children reported declines in both perceived teacher mastery and performance goal emphases in middle school. A cross-classified hierarchical linear model was used to estimate the effects of perceived teacher and parent goal emphases during 6th and 7th grades on changes in students' efficacy beliefs. An increase in self-efficacy beliefs from elementary to middle school was predicted by an increase in group-level perceptions of teachers' mastery goal emphasis, even after controlling for parents' goal emphases. These findings underscore the important role that both teachers' and parents' goal emphases play as children develop a sense of efficacy in mathematics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

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Achievement goals, efficacy beliefs and coping strategies in mathematics: The roles of perceived parent and teacher goal emphases

July 2007

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699 Reads

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280 Citations

Contemporary Educational Psychology

This study examines children’s perceptions of the achievement goals parents and teachers emphasize for them in mathematics, and the relation of these goals to children’s personal achievement goals, self-efficacy beliefs, and coping strategies. Results indicated that children’s perceptions of both parent and teacher mastery and performance goal emphases predicted children’s personal goals. Further, children’s personal goals mediated the relation between perceived parent and teacher goal emphases and children’s efficacy beliefs and coping strategies. Children’s perceptions of parent and teacher emphasis on performance goals varied slightly by gender but not ethnic background, whereas variance across groups in perceptions of mastery emphases did not reach practical significance. Relations between goal perceptions, personal goals, efficacy and coping strategies also did not vary by gender or ethnic background. Implications for future research regarding the goals children perceive to be emphasized in home and school contexts, and their importance for children’s adaptive beliefs and behaviors in mathematics, are discussed.


Changes in self-reported academic cheating across the transition from middle school to high school

October 2004

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564 Reads

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255 Citations

Contemporary Educational Psychology

Changes in early adolescents' self-reported cheating behaviors in mathematics before and after the transition from middle school to high school are examined. Students were surveyed in school regarding their cheating behaviors in math, and the motivational goal structures perceived in their math classrooms. Surveys were completed twice during the eighth grade (during middle school) and once at the end of the ninth grade (at the end of the first year in high school). Results indicated that self-reported cheating did not change in the year prior to the high school transition, but that reported cheating increased after the transition. Additional analyses indicated that across the high school transition, self-reported cheating in math increased for students who moved from high mastery to low mastery-oriented classes after the transition, and for students who moved from low performance to high performance-oriented classes; in contrast, self-reported cheating decreased for students who moved from low to high mastery-oriented math classrooms.


The Change in Middle School Students’ Achievement Goals in Mathematics Over Time

August 2004

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331 Reads

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153 Citations

Social Psychology of Education

Through the use of longitudinal survey data the change of achievement goal orientations was tested in a sample of middle school students in mathematics as they moved from sixth to seventh grade. Achievement goals include task goals and performance goals, with the partitioning of performance goals into approach and avoidance components. Results indicate that all goal orientations were moderately stable over time. Task goals in sixth grade positively predicted academic efficacy in seventh grade. Performance-approach goals in sixth grade positively predicted performance-avoid goals in seventh grade. Multiple regression and multi-sample analyses revealed that the path from performance-approach goals to performance-avoid goals was significant only among students reporting high academic efficacy before the transition. The results suggest that individuals who feel efficacious in math while endorsing a performance-approach goal orientation may be particularly vulnerable to adopting maladaptive performance-avoid goals over time and with change in circumstances. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43811/1/11218_2004_Article_5252317.pdf


Means, standard deviations, and F-tests of students' classroom perceptions
Means, standard deviations, and F-tests of students' avoidance behaviors
Percentages for teacher motivational and organizational discourse categories in spring math lessons
How Teachers Establish Psychological Environments During the First Days of School: Associations With Avoidance in Mathematics

January 2004

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3,209 Reads

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208 Citations

Teachers College Record

Observations of the first days of school in eight sixth-grade classrooms identified three different classroom environments. In supportive environments teachers expressed enthusiasm for learning, were respectful, used humor, and voiced expectations that all students would learn. In ambiguous environments teachers were inconsistent in their support and focus on learning and exercised contradictory forms of management. In nonsupportive environments teachers emphasized extrinsic reasons for learning, forewarned that learning would be difficult and that students might cheat or misbehave, and exercised authoritarian control. Teachers' patterns of motivational and organizational discourse during math classes near the end of the year were consistent with the messages they expressed at the beginning of the year. When student reports of avoidance behaviors in math from fall and spring were compared with the qualitative analyses of these environments, students in supportive classrooms reported engaging in significantly less avoidance behavior than students in ambiguous or nonsupportive environments.


Changes in the perceived classroom goal structure and pattern of adaptive learning during early adolescence

October 2003

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333 Reads

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331 Citations

Contemporary Educational Psychology

Despite a recent increase in research on the associations between classroom goal structures, motivation, affect, and achievement, little is known about the effects of changes in the perceived classroom goal structure as students move from one grade level to another. Comparisons of students who perceived an increase, decrease, or no change in the mastery and performance goal structures of their classrooms during the transition to middle school and across two grades within middle school revealed that changes in the mastery goal structure were more strongly related to changes in cognition, affect, and performance than were changes in the performance goal structure. The most negative pattern of change was associated with a perceived decrease in the mastery goal structure.


How Teachers Establish Psychological Environments during the First Days of School: Associations with Avoidance in Mathematics

October 2003

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35 Reads

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33 Citations

Teachers College Record

Observations of the first days of school in eight sixth-grade classrooms identified three different classroom environments. In supportive environments teachers expressed enthusiasm for learning, were respectful, used humor, and voiced expectations that all students would learn. In ambiguous environments teachers were inconsistent in their support and focus on learning and exercised contradictory forms of management. In nonsupportive environments teachers emphasized extrinsic reasons for learning, forewarned that learning would be difficult and that students might cheat or misbehave, and exercised authoritarian control. Teachers’ patterns of motivational and organizational discourse during math classes near the end of the year were consistent with the messages they expressed at the beginning of the year. When student reports of avoidance behaviors in math from fall and spring were compared with the qualitative analyses of these environments, students in supportive classrooms reported engaging in significantly less avoidance behavior than students in ambiguous or nonsupportive environments.


Teacher Discourse and Sixth Graders' Reported Affect and Achievement Behaviors in Two High-Mastery/High-Performance Mathematics Classrooms

March 2003

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541 Reads

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145 Citations

The Elementary School Journal

This study examined the relation between the nature of teacher discourse and 34 sixth-grade students' reports of affect and behavior in 2 mathematics classrooms students perceived as emphasizing both mastery and performance goals. Classrooms were observed and teacher discourse was audiorecorded and transcribed for the first 2 days of the school year to assess classroom motivational context. Later, in the fall and in the spring, each classroom was observed and discourse transcribed for 5 days during a unit on factoring and for 5 days during a unit on geometry. Students filled out surveys. Findings suggested that supportive instructional discourse that focused on student understanding characterized both classrooms and was associated with student reports of self-regulation and positive coping (approach behaviors). However, the 2 classrooms differed in teacher discourse that supported student autonomy and motivation. These differences appeared to be reflected in student reports of self-handicapping (avoidance behavior) and negative affect following failure. Students in the classroom in which there was constant and explicit support for autonomy and intrinsic motivation, positive affect, and collaboration reported less negative affect and self-handicapping. Students in the classroom in which there was less supportive motivational discourse reported more negative affect and self-handicapping. Implications include how features of the classroom context, such as the motivational support provided through instructional practices, might be related to student outcomes in highmastery/high-performance classrooms.


Beyond Motivation: Middle School Students' Perceptions of Press for Understanding in Math

July 2002

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214 Reads

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135 Citations

Contemporary Educational Psychology

Research in motivation and in academic press for understanding has developed separately. This study examines the relation between press for understanding and middle school students' educational beliefs and behaviors in math after controlling for their motivational goals. A scale assessing academic press for understanding was developed and included with scales assessing task, performance-approach, and performance-avoid motivational goals in surveys given to 586 eighth-grade students. Factor analysis supported the distinction between scales assessing press and motivational goals. No differences were found in students' perception of academic press by gender, race, or prior achievement. Hierarchical regression analyses found that motivational orientations predicted student beliefs and behaviors in predictable patterns. Controlling for goal orientation, academic press for understanding positively predicted self-regulation and self-efficacy and negatively predicted avoiding help-seeking but did not predict avoiding academic risk or novelty. A significant interaction indicated that as press for understanding increased, girls' avoidance of help-seeking decreased more than did boys'. The discussion includes a consideration of the mechanisms underlying press for understanding and the implications of the findings for teachers.


Classroom goal structure and student disruptive behavior

July 2002

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6,456 Reads

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383 Citations

Achievement goal theory suggests that the emphasis on mastery and performance goals in the classroom (the classroom goal structure) is related to students' patterns of learning and behaviour. This theory can offer a preventative holistic approach for dealing with students' disruptive behaviour. The present study investigates whether the goal structure in the classroom is related to the incidence of disruptive behaviour. Sample and Methods: A total of 388 ninth-grade students from 60 classrooms in five ethnically diverse high schools responded to surveys asking about the perceived goal structures, their personal achievement goals, and their involvement in disruptive behaviour in their maths classroom. Their maths teachers responded to surveys asking about their goal-related approaches to instruction. Using hierarchical linear modelling (HLM), at the student level, being male and having lower achievement was related to reports of disruptive behaviour. In addition, personal mastery goals were related to lower reports of disruptive behaviour and personal performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals were related to higher reports of disruptive behaviour. Disruptive behaviour also varied significantly between classrooms. Aggregated student perceptions of a mastery goal structure were related to a lower incidence, and aggregated student perceptions of a performance-approach goal structure were related to a higher incidence of disruptive behaviour. The implications of the findings to approaches for dealing with disruptive behaviour are discussed.


Citations (81)


... Compared to younger students, the school closures and learning disruptions caused by the pandemic may have a greater impact on senior high school students. It can be reasoned that in contrast to junior high school students, senior high school students may have a greater need for educational continuity, social connections, profound self-awareness, and life guidance [68,69]. This may explain the observed grade differences in program quality perception and implementer quality perception in this study. ...

Reference:

Subjective Outcome Evaluation of a Positive Youth Development Program in Mainland China: Evidence in the Post-Pandemic Era
Development during adolescence: The impact of stage–environment fit on young adolescents' experiences in schools and in families (1993).
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 1997

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Carol Midgley

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Allan Wigfield

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... Wentzel (1997) explored student motivation in middle school and revealed that students' perceptions of teacher care positively correlate with their academic motivation. Patrick et al. (2003) investigated how teachers' classroom management styles and relational strategies affect students' motivation to engage in challenging tasks. Hattie's (2008) meta-analyses related to achievement also included the impact of teacher clarity, feedback and expectations on student motivation and achievement. ...

How Teachers Establish Psychological Environments during the First Days of School: Associations with Avoidance in Mathematics
  • Citing Article
  • October 2003

Teachers College Record

... Therefore, it is important to show children support and create opportunities in order to succeed in school. The sense of achievement and the desire to achieve self-satisfaction, but also admiration among others, is genetically determined, making humans strive to achieve them from an early age (Roeser, et al., 1996;Ivcevic & Brackett,2014). The role of the teacher and the school is to support these aspirations, which can contribute to the development of pupils' abilities and talents. ...

Perceptions of the school psychological environment and early adolescents' self appraisals and academic engagement: The mediating role of goals and belonging
  • Citing Article
  • January 1996

Journal of Educational Psychology

... Classroom goal structures, characterized by their emphasis on either mastery or performance orientations, have been shown to exert significant impacts on students' academic performance (Ames & Archer, 1988;Urdan & Midgley, 2003;Wolters, 2004). Despite the well-established direct effects of classroom goal structures on motivational outcomes (Kaplan et al., 2002;Urdan & Turner, 2005), there is sparse evidence on how expectancy-value beliefs, which are central to SEVT, serve as mediators in this relationship, particularly across different subject areas (Urdan & Midgley, 2003; see also . This situated perspective indicates that structural relationships between expectancies, values, and costs may be inherently context-dependent-varying across educational settings, temporal contexts, and measurement approaches (Jiang et al., 2018;Muenks et al., 2018;Perez et al., 2019). ...

Achievement goals and goal structures

... Tällöin nuoren elämässä tapahtuu monia haasteellisia muutoksia, kuten puberteettiin liittyviä fyysisiä ja psyykkisiä muutoksia sekä alakoulusta yläkouluun siirty-miseen liittyviä muutoksia fyysisessä ja sosiaalisessa lähiympäristössä (Pietarinen, 1999). Aiemmissa, pääosin amerikkalaisissa (Chung, Elias & Schneider, 1998;Eccles & Midgley, 1989;Simmons & Blyth, 1987;Wigfield, Eccles, Mac Iver, Reuman & Midgley, 1991), mutta myös joissakin suomalaisissa (Ylinen, Aunola, Metsä-pelto, Lerkkanen & Kiuru, 2016) tutkimuksissa on havaittu, että nuorten hyvinvointi heikkenee heidän siirtyessään alakoulusta yläkouluun. Siirtymään liittyviä hyvinvointimuutoksia on tarkasteltu kuitenkin varsin vähän suomalaisilla nuorilla. ...

Stage‐environment fit Developmentally appropriate classrooms for young adolescents
  • Citing Article
  • January 1989

... 4 One line of correlation research that associates supportive relationships to positive youth outcomes relates characteristics of parents to positive youth development. Over time, positive parental support is associated with positive school motivation, mental health, and lower rates of risky behaviors (like drinking and smoking), delinquency, and school misconduct (Clark, 1983;Eccles, Lord, and Midgley, 1991;Epstein and Dauber, 1991;Henderson and Berla, 1994;Booth andDunn, 1996, Grotevant, 1998;Furstenberg et al., 1999;Steinberg, 2001). A second research strand shows that supportive relationships are positively associated with desirable outcomes in other settings, including the classroom, sports programs, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and mentoring programs (Comer, 1988;Roberts and Treasure, 1992;Smoll, Smith, Barnett, and Everett, 1993;Seefeldt, Ewing, and Walk, 1993;Eccles, 1998;Grossman and Rhodes, 1999;Jackson and Davis, 2000). ...

What are we doing to early adolescents?
  • Citing Article
  • January 1991

... Middle school represents a developmental mismatch, marked by increasing desires for independence and autonomy amid a more competitive and controlling educational environment. In the stage-environment fit approach [23], referred to the middle school period as a poor developmental-stage-environment fit [24], which may affect students' motivation, family and teacher relationships, and the characteristics and status of grit, a non-cognitive domain. In particular, during the middle school years in Korea, 47.3% of students are worried about their academics [25], indicating that academic stress is high. ...

Stage/environment fit: Developmentally appropriate classrooms for early adolescents
  • Citing Article
  • January 1989

... Midgley [49] and Nabavi et al. [51] observe the need for combining PM with a more technical cooperative modeling paradigm in the design of sustainable systems. Thus, we recommend IS researchers to develop combined participatorycollaborative modeling methods, e.g., by relying on PM in the early phases of cooperation and gradually refining models into more technical and actionable ones via collaborative modeling. ...

Methods for studying goals, goal structures, and patterns of adaptive learning
  • Citing Article
  • January 2002

... The motivations for choosing a teaching career have long been an important area of educational research. During the last two decades researchers have begun to adapt theories of student motivation, such as expectancy-value theory (Watt & Richardson, 2007, based on Eccles Parsons et al., 1983) to improve understanding of the motivations for choosing to teach. A burgeoning research literature is underway to trace how teachers' motivations to teach are connected to teaching behaviour, commitment to the profession, wellbeing at work and student learning (for a review, see Watt & Richardson, 2023, 2024. ...

Expectations, values, and academic behaviors
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 1983

... Teachers, too, can nudge students toward mastery or performance goals, typically through the classroom climateor goal structure (Ames, 1992)that they cultivate. Teachers create a mastery-oriented climate by giving moderately challenging tasks, focusing evaluations on personal improvement and the process of learning, allowing students some voice and autonomy, and presenting warmth, all of which should encourage students to adopt a mastery goal themselves (Stipek et al., 1998;Turner et al., 2002;Urdan et al., 1999). Conversely, they create a performance-oriented climate by giving difficult tasks, emphasizing social comparisons during evaluation, singling out top performers, and adopting an outcome focus (i.e., getting answers correct). ...

The classroom environment and students´ reports of avoidance strategies in mathematics: A multimethod study

Journal of Educational Psychology