How learners’ achievement goal motivation influences their metacognitive skills in online social annotations context?

ABSTRACT

Online learning requires high self-regulated abilities facilitated by metacognitive skills. Achievement goal motivation impacts metacognition, but their relationship in online learning contexts lacks consensus. One of the components of achievement goal orientation is mastery goal orientation which focuses on learning and self-improvement. The other component, performance goal orientation, emphasises demonstrating competence. This quantitative study collected questionnaire and behavioural log data from 39 learners and examined the interplay between achievement goal motivation and metacognitive skills within an online social annotation environment. Findings revealed that mastery goal orientation positively correlated with metacognitive planning and regulation, while performance goal orientation was predominantly associated with metacognitive regulation. Neither goals significantly correlated with metacognitive monitoring. Cluster analysis indicated that ‘balanced achievers’ with higher performance goal orientation may play a pivotal role in promoting social cognition. These insights deepen understanding of motivating learners and creating effective online learning approaches by leveraging the influence of achievement goal motivation on metacognitive strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-regulated learning
• achievement goal motivation
• metacognition
• social annotations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Xiaojie Niu: Conceptualisation, Data curation; Writing – original draft

Weijia Chen: Methodology; Writing – review & editing

Luyue Li, Wenmei Zhang, Shurui Gao & Chun He: Conceptualisation and Visualization

Jingjing Zhang: Funding acquisition and Supervision

Data statements

All data collection processes were in accordance with specifications and were authorised by the informed consent of the person concerned. Anyone interested in obtaining detailed data can contact the corresponding author to obtain it.

Ethics statement

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University. All data collection processes were in accordance with specifications and were authorised by the informed consent of the person concerned. Anyone interested in obtaining detailed data can contact the corresponding author to obtain it.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xiaojie Niu

Xiaojie Niu is a current PhD student at Beijing Normal University. She received her BS and MA degree in Beijing Normal University. Her research interests are learning analysis, the learning science, social network in online learning and complex systems.

Weijia Chen

Weijia Chen is a Singaporean pursuing a PhD in Distance Education in Beijing Normal University, China. Her research interests include learning analytics, instructional design in online learning environment, particularly for adult learners and professional development.

Luyue Li

Luyue Li is a current PhD student at Beijing Normal University, focusing on online learning analytics, educational evaluation, and big data in education.

Wenmei Zhang

Wenmei Zhang is a current PhD student at Beijing Normal University. Her research interests are learning analysis, network analysis in online learning and Connectivist learning.

Shurui Gao

Shurui Gao is a current PhD student from Beijing Normal University, and her research focuses on multimodal learning analysis and instructional design.

Chun He

Chun He is a current PhD student at Beijing Normal University. Her research interest is technology using for teacher professional development.

Jingjing Zhang

Jingjing Zhang is Professor at Beijing Normal University, China. She received BSc in Computer Science from BNU, an MSc and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. Her current work focuses on developing data mining techniques to explore human relationships and activities online, particularly in the learning sciences.