I have no questionnaire, but the concept of goals has always intrigued me. Clearly sustainable behaviour must be based on those goals that on balance have the most meaning to a person at the moment of the behaviour, so a questionnaire that does not delve into the multiplicity of goals in play in a person at any one time will yield only superficial information ie that there is a gap or not. In this context, I mean goals to be ANY desired outcome, either immediate, short or long term, that is responsive to behaviour. I would suggest that it may well be a limbic 'weighing up' of immediate pleasures vs long term gain that is at play, so there will be a more pronounced gap for students with less self regulation (ability to put off short term gains), so a questionnaire that also measures self regulation would be useful.

I have no questionnaire, but the concept of goals has always intrigued me. Clearly sustainable behaviour must be based on those goals that on balance have the most meaning to a person at the moment of the behaviour, so a questionnaire that does not delve into the multiplicity of goals in play in a person at any one time will yield only superficial information ie that there is a gap or not. In this context, I mean goals to be ANY desired outcome, either immediate, short or long term, that is responsive to behaviour. I would suggest that it may well be a limbic 'weighing up' of immediate pleasures vs long term gain that is at play, so there will be a more pronounced gap for students with less self regulation (ability to put off short term gains), so a questionnaire that also measures self regulation would be useful.

Dear Benedictus, 

The Theory of planned behavior could work:

Article Intention to donate blood among the eligible population in M...

Article Relapse Preventative Intervention among Iranian Addicts Base...

Article The Theory of Planned Behavior, Past Behavior, Situational F...

Thank you a lot for both answers.

Mark, what you are emphasizing is one of the most importat point. To measure the quality of a person's goal, I measure the "self-concordance" of the goal. It measures whether the goal is set for autonomous reasons (it reflects self-endorsed values and interests) or for controlled reasons (e.g. extrenal pressure or introjected anxciety). However, after measuring how self-concordant a goal is, I want to measure how this influences the personal intention-behavior gap. E.g. whether people who follow their self-endorsed values and interests are more likely to achieve the goals they set.

Béatrice, thank you for the proposed literature. I also came across the theory of planned behavior. Unfortunately the papers do not offer a scale to measure the intention-beheavior gap at one point of time. They measure the intention at "time 1" and the behavior at "time 2" and evaluate whether the behavior matches the intentions.

My goal is to measure the intention-behavior gap at one point of time. E.g. with questions like "How similar are you to this person:  He or she always accomplishes the goals he or she sets".

If somebody knows questionnaires which work like that, it would be awesome to see the relevant papers.

Cheers

Bene

As a principal in a large primary school, I am seeking a way to gain a deeper understanding of how to give students a greater opportunity to self-direct their learning. Why some students engage as lead learners and why some do not is very complex and self-regulation is one of the differentiators.  A survey for children focussed on giving feedback to their teachers about their learning progress would be a great tool and the information gathered would be powerful for both the children and their educators; determining to some extend what they need to learn next.  Have you come across a survey which may support this kind of process of sharing learning needs and progress?

Lisa

I am not 100 percent sure whether this matches your needs. But Sheldon and Elliot did something quite similar to what you are describing. They analyzed the effort and goal attainment of students during their studies. They also measured how self-concordant (reflecting their self-endorsed values and authentic interests) their goals are. They found out that students who engage in self-concordant goals put more effort into the attainment and by that had higher chances to achieve their goals and achieve higher levels of subjective well-being.

You could use their instruments for measuring self-concordance, goal effort and goal attainment to find out whether your lead learners at your school also engage in more self-concordant goals. The chances are high concerning scientific literature. By that, you could emphasize that it is important for your students to engage in things they are convinced of and interested in. To help them doing this you could help them create awareness of their values and interests.

I hope this helps. Attached the link for the study with the necessary measures:

https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/1999_SheldonElliot.pdf

As well as the idea of self concordance (which I find is consistent with my observations in general), I wonder if the gap is also because of the self description of goals such that they have low self concordance and perhaps that this self description to create high self concordance can be taught. One could describe (internally) one's educational goals in narrow terms - to get an A for their work, or broader terms to do well at school, or even broader terms - to do the best I can at whatever I try to do. My suggestion is that the breadth of the goal may be more consistent with reducing the gap. A narrowly described goal has less chance of being consistent with one's true (if unstated values), while broader goals may have more chance because they are closer to descriptions of values. From the broader goals/values people then determine strategies (like short term goals) to attain the larger goal. There are of course other linguistic differences in these goals that I think could be important besides the breadth of the goals.

As a side issue, I wonder if this is why Finland's schools do so well. The system inherantly 'teaches' students to make goals (eg to learn effectively) or values (learning is personal and valuable) that are self concordant, and then matches these broad goals with shorter term goals on a daily basis. In many/most other countries, the system, by virtue of the assessment and reporting systems (I would suggest based on some of my own work)  'teaches' students to make narrower or inappropriate goals (with low self concordance) such as 'to be an A student', which has more chance of a disconnect with their true values.

Another issue impacting on goal creation may be the perception of assessment because of reporting. In Finland assessment is perceived as merely informative for the purpose of teaching, whereas in most other countries because of the reporting (and social discourse outside schools), assessment is seen as judgemental or defining the status of the child, in a way that may become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Dear Benedict,

This paper looked at intention-behavior consistency using a cross-sectional design: 

Abraham, C., Sheeran, P., Norman, P., Conner, M., Otten, W., & de Vries, N. (1999). When good intentions are not enough: Modelling post-intention cognitive correlates of condom use. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 2591-2612.

Kind regards,

Paschal Sheeran

Thank you a lot!

This paper of you:

Sheeran, P. (2002). Intention—behavior relations: A conceptual and empirical review. European review of social psychology, 12(1), 1-36.

also includes a very well developed and comprehensive collection of factors that influence intention-behavior relations. Good work!

Kind regards!

Benedict