Abstract:
Effective writing skills are essential for success in academic, professional, and personal spheres. However, in Australia, students from low-income families are disproportionately represented among those who fail to meet the writing benchmarks set by NAPLAN, compared to their more affluent peers. This highlights the need to better understand how writing is taught to these students. This study was designed to examine how teachers approach writing instruction for low SES (socioeconomic status) students.
Based on an achievement goal perspective, this study explores teachers’ goals for teaching (GOTs) to understand the writing instruction provided by Years 4 to 6 teachers to their low SES students. Teachers’ GOTs are standards that they strive to achieve or cognitive representations of their perceived purposes for teaching. These goals are important because they represent yardsticks defining success in teaching and evaluating competence. Such goals create ‘qualitatively different systems of meaning,’ affecting teachers’ attitudes, behaviours, and instructional practices.
To gather data, 241 Years 4 to 6 teachers in Queensland who taught writing to low SES students completed a mailed survey. The survey was based on Butler’s achievement goals for teaching framework and included four types of teaching goals: mastery goals, ability approach goals, ability avoidance goals, and work avoidance goals. Additionally, the survey assessed teacher beliefs and writing instructional practices.
A two-stage sequential clustering analysis identified three distinct groups of teachers, each holding a unique mixture of teaching goals:
Mastery-driven teachers (n = 71) who held strong mastery goals alongside average ability approach goals.
Performance-driven teachers (n = 87) who held strong ability approach, ability avoidance, and work avoidance goals.
Moderate goals teachers (n = 83) who had average scores in all four goals for teaching writing to low SES students.
MANCOVA analyses revealed that these groups differed in their beliefs about students’ cognitive attributes for successful writing, their views on the appropriateness of offering basic writing training, the time spent on teaching writing, and the frequency of teaching basic and advanced writing skills. Age, teaching experiences, self-assessment of pre-service and in-service training on teaching writing were entered as covariates. Among these groups, mastery-driven teachers exhibited the most adaptive profile for teaching writing to low SES students. The survey results demonstrate the critical role of teachers’ teaching goals in understanding how writing is taught to low SES students, challenging the adequacy of focusing solely on students’ performance when teaching writing to low SES students.
Based on an achievement goal perspective, this study explores teachers’ goals for teaching (GOTs) to understand the writing instruction provided by Years 4 to 6 teachers to their low SES students. Teachers’ GOTs are standards that they strive to achieve or cognitive representations of their perceived purposes for teaching. These goals are important because they represent yardsticks defining success in teaching and evaluating competence. Such goals create ‘qualitatively different systems of meaning,’ affecting teachers’ attitudes, behaviours, and instructional practices.
To gather data, 241 Years 4 to 6 teachers in Queensland who taught writing to low SES students completed a mailed survey. The survey was based on Butler’s achievement goals for teaching framework and included four types of teaching goals: mastery goals, ability approach goals, ability avoidance goals, and work avoidance goals. Additionally, the survey assessed teacher beliefs and writing instructional practices.
A two-stage sequential clustering analysis identified three distinct groups of teachers, each holding a unique mixture of teaching goals:
Mastery-driven teachers (n = 71) who held strong mastery goals alongside average ability approach goals.
Performance-driven teachers (n = 87) who held strong ability approach, ability avoidance, and work avoidance goals.
Moderate goals teachers (n = 83) who had average scores in all four goals for teaching writing to low SES students.
MANCOVA analyses revealed that these groups differed in their beliefs about students’ cognitive attributes for successful writing, their views on the appropriateness of offering basic writing training, the time spent on teaching writing, and the frequency of teaching basic and advanced writing skills. Age, teaching experiences, self-assessment of pre-service and in-service training on teaching writing were entered as covariates. Among these groups, mastery-driven teachers exhibited the most adaptive profile for teaching writing to low SES students. The survey results demonstrate the critical role of teachers’ teaching goals in understanding how writing is taught to low SES students, challenging the adequacy of focusing solely on students’ performance when teaching writing to low SES students.