A Model of Learning Goals: Enhancing the Education Process

I develop a model of learning goals systems that conceptualize and quantify learning processes in its stages: preparatory, delivery, acquirement, assessments, and improvements. I employ theories of work motivation, self-regulation, and strategic management. I construct a two-staged model, with a theoretical foundation and a practical application for education.

The model blends self-regulation with theories of work motivation. Self-regulation, widely applied to educational psychology, contends that students experience several stages to include task-perception, goal-setting, planning, and adaptation (Shunk, 2008). These elements may lead to enhanced learning, driven by internal control locus. Externally, work motivation theories such as expectation (Campbell and Pritchard, 1983), goal setting (Locke and Latham, 1990), hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1987) explicate individuals’ propensity to exert efforts in work settings. The imperative to fulfill one’s needs lead to work efforts with expectations of rewards implicitly satisfying needs (Luca, 2000). Goal-setting further enhances work performance, by setting clear goals and providing feedback, among others. I argue that education is a work environment, whose goals are acquiring learning, skills, and expertise. Learning goals managed systems complement self-regulation and are associated with improved learning performance. Strategic management tools, such as goal cascading, implementation, controls provide enablers to transform a conceptual model into effective “hands-on” systems, augmenting learning outcomes.

Learning goals determine the process of learning that consist of establishment of learning goals, delivery of  learning based on goals, acquiring of learning driven by goals, assessments of learning outcomes as fulfillments of learning goals, and improvement of learning to optimally reach learning goals.