Learning Mathematics from Procedural Instruction: Externally Imposed Goals Influence What Is Learned.

Do externally imposed achievement goals influence what children learn from procedural instruction? Third- and 4th-grade children's goals were manipulated toward either learning or performance. All children were then taught a procedure for solving mathematical equivalence problems (e.g., a + b + c = a + __). Children who were given learning goals were initially more likely to gain conceptual knowledge from the procedural lesson than were children who were given performance goals. After a 2-week period, however, children who were given performance goals exhibited the same conceptual gains as children who were given learning goals. Both initially and after the 2-week period, children who were given either goal were more likely to extend their knowledge beyond the taught procedure than were children who were not given goals. External sources such as teachers and parents may have the potential to foster children's learning by shaping children's goals. When children learn a problem-solving procedure, they may not necessarily gain the corresponding conceptual knowledge. Further, children may not be able to transfer their procedural skills to novel problems. Both of these learning processes, gaining conceptual knowledge from procedural instruction and transferring newly acquired knowledge to novel problems, challenge children to go beyond an instructed procedure. The purpose of the present study is to examine whether externally imposed achievement goals influence children's ability to extend their knowledge beyond an instructed mathematical procedure.