Are you learning or performing? A comparison of students’ goal orientation during experimentation at an outreach science laboratory and at school using the CEAS model

Background

Many outreach science laboratories have been established in the fields of STEM to counteract negative developments in student motivation such as a decrease in mastery-approach goal orientation and an increase in avoidance-performance goal orientation. Studies to date have not yet addressed the question whether a visit to an outreach science laboratory could have a buffering or counteracting effect on these negative developments.

Aims

We investigated differences in students’ state goal orientations, state of interest, perceived need satisfaction, and perceived pressure when conducting experiments in an outreach science laboratory or at school.

Sample

Participants were 358 German school students (age: M = 16.43 years, SD = 0.76 years; gender: 58% female).

Methods

In a quasi-experimental study, the students conducted the same experiments at an outreach science laboratory (n = 186) or at school (n = 171) under local conditions.

Results

The students in the outreach science laboratory perceived themselves as more competent, more related, and less pressured than the students at school. Their state of interest and perceived autonomy were similarly high. Furthermore, we found no differences in their state mastery-approach goal orientation, while the students in the outreach science laboratory exhibited lower performance goal orientations than the students at school.

Conclusions

Our findings support the assumption that students may be motivated to learn about biological content in outreach science laboratories as at school, but with more competence perception and beyond performance pressure. Regarding the recent negative developments of student motivation, outreach science laboratories might be valuable complements to formal biology education.