Supporting physics teaching with research-based resources

The 5-point Likert agree/disagree questions on the PGOS were taken from a previous survey of goal orientation by Duda and Nicholls (1992) and revised so that they would be appropriate for a university level physics course. Several new questions were created to ensure each goal orientation category had a sufficient number of questions to probe it. The PGOS questions underwent expert review. The PGOS was given to over 1500 students, including physics majors and non-majors, at the University of Sydney over a three-year time period. A factor analysis was performed on three different versions of the PGOS, to ensure that students’ views of which questions were similar was the same as the intended categories of goal orientations. Version 3 of the PGOS had appropriate factor loadings for the goal orientation categories. Focus groups which were conducted with a subset of students to help the developers better understand students’ goal orientations. The PGOS has been given to over 1500 students at one university, and the results published in two peer-reviewed articles.