Perceived Goal Structures vs. Perceived Instructor Mindset: Exploring Two Measures of Perceived Context in an Undergraduate Science Classroom

Decades of research have demonstrated that students’ perceptions of their classroom context, including perceived goal structures and perceived instructor mindset, are important predictors of their academic outcomes. However, some perceived context variables are conceptually similar and are theorized to emerge from very similar classroom behaviors and practices; it is important to establish whether these perceptions are empirically distinct or whether they are prone to a “jangle” fallacy. We aimed to explore how undergraduates’ perceptions of goal structure and instructor mindset in the same biochemistry course relate to each other and uniquely predict students’ motivation, psychological vulnerability, behavior, and achievement. Our final samples included undergraduates from two semesters of the same biochemistry course (Ns = 231 and 438). Participants completed surveys measuring their perceived context, motivation, psychological vulnerability, and behavior. We assessed empirical distinctiveness of the perceived context variables using confirmatory factor analyses and correlations. We assessed for outcome differences using hierarchical linear regression. Our results demonstrated that perceptions of goal structures (mastery and performance) and perceptions of instructor mindsets (growth and fixed) were empirically distinct. Though each dimension of perceived context uniquely predicted some outcomes, goal structures were the strongest predictors, with mastery goal structure most strongly predicting motivation and performance goal structure most strongly predicting psychological experiences and behaviors. Our results provide evidence against the concern of these constructs being a “jangle” fallacy and suggest that perceptions of behavior may be more proximal predictors of student outcomes than perceptions of beliefs.