The Effect Of Achievement Goals And Working Memory Span On Mental Arithmetic Performances Of Primary School Students

It is one of the most important goals to train students'mental arithmetic ability in primary school, so teachers attach great importance to how to improve the level of mental arithmetic teaching. As one of the important achievement motives, achievement goals play a crucial role in students'learning performances. So it's necessary for educators to know how to utilize achievement goals effectively so that they can make full use of the positive effects while avoiding the negative effects in order to improve children's mental arithmetic ability and learning ability eventually.This research adopted questionnaires and experiments within 2 studies. In study 1, 180 students in grade four from a primary school completed a questionnaire about dispositional achievement goals, working memory span test, and mental arithmetic test. We investigated the relationship among the three. In study 2 which adopted 2(working memory span: high or low)×3(situated achievement goals: mastery, performance-approach or performance-avoidance)×3(number of carries: zero,one or two) hybrid experimental designs, high WM span and low WM span which included 90 samples in totals from study 1 were randomly divided into 3 groups respectively. Each group entered an induced goal orientation situation separately. The aim was to explore situated achievement goals'influence on mental arithmetic, the effect of number of carries and the effect of working memory span. Results indicated:(1) Each dispositional achievement goal and working memory span both related significantly to mental arithmetic. Working memory span, performance-approach goal and performance-avoidance goal could directly predict mental arithmetic. Working memory span moderated the relationship between dispositional performance-avoidance goal and correction rate of mental arithmetic.(2) Situated achievement goals had significant effects on mental arithmetic, excluding dispositional achievement goals'effects. Performance-approach had two-sided characteristic: they can improve the correction rate while costing longer reaction time at another side. Mastery goal had a positive effect associating with high correction rate and short reaction time. Performance-avoidance had a negative effect associating with low correction rate and long reaction time.(3) Number of carries had a significant main effect on mental arithmetic, and had a significant interaction with situated achievement goals on correction rate. For two-carry problems, the order of correction rate from high to low was: mastery, performance-approach, performance-avoidance. For one-carry problems, correction rate of both situated mastery and performance-approach was significantly higher than performance-avoidance. For no-carry problems, the three situated goals had no significant differences.(4) Participants'working memory span had a significant main effect on mental arithmetic, and could moderate the relation between situated achievement goals and correction rate. In high working memory span group, correction rate of situated mastery was significantly higher than both performance-approach and performance-avoidance; in low working memory span group, the order of correciton rate from high to low was: performance-approach, mastery, performance-avoidance.(5) The situated achievement goals orientations in experimental settings corresponded with the self-reported achievement goals orientations, the participants in three different situated achievement goal reported higher corresponding motivational profile respectively.