Students’ Performance in Physical Education: The Role of Differential Achievement Goals and Self-Regulated Learning

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study attempted to understand and examine the relationship between differential achievement goals and self-regulated learning, as well as these mechanisms’ consequences for performance in physical education.

The research has scientific relevance. The article was written very well. The findings were novel. However, you need provide some explanations and answer the questions below in order to consider your study for future publication.

1- The socio-cultural environment influences motivations and achievement goal orientations of students.

Please provide more information about the socio-cultural background of participants. Bring up this element in the Discussion section to explain your results.

2- Is gender difference has been considered in your study? Justify

If yes, did you find differences in performances of girls compared to those of boys?

If no, please delete the sentences below that claim gender differences in performance… it’s not particularly relevant to your purpose.

L33-34 : “Studies indicate that boys, and those who are already active in their spare time, consistently perform better.”

L151-153 :  “Previous studies from the US also suggest that MAp and the use of SRL (e.g., self-recording and self-talk) led to better learning of motoric skills for girls in PE.”

3- It would be better to see more description of Performance in PE in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript.

4- Who evaluate student’s performance for your participants? If there are several evaluators, this could not influence competence’ scores assigned to students? Justify

Author Response

1. The socio-cultural environment influences motivations and achievement goal
orientations of students. Please provide more information about the socio-cultural background of participants. Bring up this element in the Discussion section to explain your results.
The two schools in this study covers a relatively large geographical area, representing a variety of different socio-cultural environments. Since our aim was to map general mechanisms of achievement motivation and self-regulated learning, we did not include more specific questions concerning socio-cultural background in the questionnaire. However, this would be highly interesting for a follow-up study. At the same time, the reported grades were the same as the mean score for the whole country. This support that the sample is representative.

2. Is gender difference has been considered in your study? Justify
Gender differences were considered and tested in the model. However, including gender in the model resulted in poor model fit and we decided not to follow up on gender differences in this study. Similar studies, investigating general mechanisms of achievement goals, selfregulation and performance seldom include gender in the model (e. g. Laxdal et al. 2020, Ommundsen, 2006).

If no, please delete the sentences below that claim gender differences in
performance… it’s not particularly relevant to your purpose.
L33-34 : “Studies indicate that boys, and those who are already active in their spare time, consistently perform better.”
Sentence deleted
L151-153 : “Previous studies from the US also suggest that MAp and the use of SRL (e.g., self-recording and self-talk) led to better learning of motoric skills for girls in PE.”
Rewritten: “Previous studies from the US also suggest that MAp and the use of
SRL (e.g., self-recording and self-talk) led to better learning of motoric skills in
PE”.
3. It would be better to see more description of Performance in PE in the Materials and Methods section of the manuscript.
Performance in PE is described in detail on page 5, lines 226-234. Not clear how we should elaborate on this.
4. Who evaluate student’s performance for your participants? If there are several
evaluators, this could not influence competence’ scores assigned to students? Justify
Performance is measured through self-reported grades. We have included the following sentence with references to underscore the accuracy of self-reported grades: “Self-reported grades have been found to correlate strongly with actual grades, and even though students have a small tendency to over-report their performance, self-reported grades are believed to be accurate indicators of actual grades [88, 89].”

Reviewer 2 Report

Interesting idea of this article, my recommendations are the following:
In the abstract, I recommend deleting the bibliographic sources and rewriting the sentence so that the methods used emerge. Add the age to the number of participants.
Section 2.1 recommends specifying the final number of subjects on the two levels.
Line 169 I recommend to describe descriptively what it represents: MAp, MAv, PAp, and PAv.
Below tables 1 and 2, I recommend mentioning what the abbreviations represent.

Author Response

Interesting idea of this article, my recommendations are the following:

1. In the abstract, I recommend

a. deleting the bibliographic sources and
This is done in the revised version.
b. rewriting the sentence so that the methods used emerge.
Not sure how to deal with this since the abstract already specifies methods on page 1, lines 13-15: «A cross-sectional questionnaire was conducted, and the results were analyzed with a multiple regression based structural equation model.”
c. Add the age to the number of participants.
The questionnaire does not include question about age. The participants are students in grade 11-13. We have now specified this in the abstract, and also changed from age to grade in description of participants on page 4, lines 187-188.

2. Section 2.1 recommends specifying the final number of subjects on the two levels.

We have specified the number of participants in each grade on page 4, lines 192-193.

3. Line 169 I recommend to describe descriptively what it represents: MAp, MAv, PAp, and PAv.

The following sentences are added to the text: “The questions in AGQ-S are made to measure how students strive for competence or avoid incompetence. Each of the achievement goals was measured using three questions. The latent variable for MAp was constructed with questions 5, 8 and 10 in the questionnaire, for MAv it was formed with questions 4, 6 and 13, for PAp questions 7, 11 and 14, and finally questions 9, 12 and 15 were the latent variable for PAv”.
4. Below tables 1 and 2, I recommend mentioning what the abbreviations represent.
This is done in the revised version.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for submitting your manuscript entitled, students’ performance in PE: the role of differential achievement goals and self-regulated learning. This study examines the relationship between differential achievement goals and self-regulated learning, as well as these mechanisms’ consequences for performance in PE. I was pleased to find that the manuscript was well-written with minor editorial/style issues. With this in mind, I have several recommendations that the author(s) may want to consider. The feedback will be framed in terms of both general comments and specific, line-by-line suggestions. I hope that the recommendations will be received in the constructive manner it was intended and will assist authors as they continue with this critical line of inquiry.

Abstract

Line 14, consider changing “results” to “data”.

Line 15-17, consider providing statistical results summary (e.g., coefficient and p-value).

Line 19-20, trying to be specific, avoid using words like “some”.

Line 22: Keywords should not be consistent with the title.

Introduction

The introduction in general is relatively clear in describing the related variables and research, but I feel introductory sections could be updated on literature of relationships between achievement goals and self-regulated learning. Most of the literature in this study was published before 2015. I suggest the author(s) include more updated empirical sources with specific results about the impact of self-regulated learning on students’ performance in PE. 

 

Line 62, change to “The research questions which guided this research were '', also considering separate research questions, and keep it consistent by using the similar expression such as using “to what extent” to both research questions.

Line 10, 64, 401, trying to be specific, considering change “these” to “motivational”

Line 90, drawing a figure to present the Zimmerman cyclical model would be a great supplemental material that helps the reader understand the interaction between each variable.

Methods

A majority of the method section is clear, but there are sections that need clarification or specific details.

Line 156, please provide more details about the research context. For example, in these two upper secondary schools, which content did the teachers teach in the PE class. PE teacher experiences?  Data collection timeline?

Line 159-161, please use Chi-square or other statistical analyses to examine whether there are potential differences for age and gender between the full sample and final sample.

Line 173, 183.  please present the internal consistency reliability scores (range) for each questionnaire (Cronbach's alpha) based on the current sample.

 

Data analysis and results sections were strengths of the manuscript. Each measure was described comprehensively.

 

Discussion

The discussion section could benefit from the authors describing how the findings of this study inform, extend or expand on the prior literature in this area. More specifically, what are the specific implications of your findings regarding the literature surrounding PE curriculum, teacher professional development, class climate in secondary PE? Although author(a) elaborated a section about practical implication of the results for students and teachers in PE, the discussion can be expanded. Especially talking about the pedagogical implication/strategies for secondary physical educators teaching PE.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

I was pleased to see that the author(s) great effort to promptly address most of the reviewers' concerns. I would recommend publication without any modifications.