However, there are not so many researches that focus on it in China。 It is worthwhile to do a research and study on making effective learning goal setting strategies。 It is because the policy of new reform of university entrance examination has been widely put into practice in Zhejiang and Shanghai that we chose to do the present research in Huzhou High School, Zhejiang province。
2。 Literature Review
2。1 Learning goal and learning performance
2。1。1 The concept of learning goal
Tyler explained in his book that “If an educational program is to be planned and if efforts for continued improvement are to be made, it is very necessary to have some conception of the goals that are being aimed at”(1950)。 So before explaining the phrase learning goal, people must clarify goals and objectives。
The terms goal and aim are used in curriculum discussions interchangeably to refer to a description of the general purposes of a curriculum while objective to refer to a more specific and concrete description of purposes used in teachers’ daily class teaching (Marzano, 2012; Richards, 2001 )。 In this study, I will use the terms goal and objective。 In Richards’s book about goals, it is interpreted as following:文献综述
A goal refers to a statement of a general change that a program seeks to bring about in learners。 The purposes of goal statements are:
·to provide a clear definition of the purposes of a program
·to provide guidelines for teachers, learners, and materials writers
·to help provide a focus for instruction
·to describe important and reasonable changes in learning。(2001: 5)
Tyler’s understanding towards nature of content and nature of learning makes it clear that the educators must design special goals and be sure to demonstrate that the goal can be achieved by certain behaviors (see Marzano, 2012)。 There are three types of goals according to the theory of Krathwohl and Payne (1971)。 They are global objectives, educational objectives and instructional objectives。 And among the three, educational objectives is the most specific one which interprets specific knowledge area but never decide the condition of performance or criteria of success as instructional objectives。 Actually, in the chapter of Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives written by Marzano( 2012), educational objectives can be called as learning goal as well。 And the importance of learning goal in daily class activities is self-evident。 Therefore, learning goal means general purposes of acquiring knowledge in specific area but not as concrete as objectives。