Abstract:

Teachers' goal orientations influence their teaching practice and students' learning outcomes. Generally, teachers' mastery goal orientation has been positively associated with students' self-regulated learning (SRL). Both, mastery-, and performance-approach goal orientations are related to higher students’ creativity and may play an important role in the teaching and learning process of highly able students with dyslexia as a group of twice exceptional students (2e). Their academic and socio-emotional success depends largely on teacher beliefs about their high abilities and talents and willingness to address their educational needs and provide appropriate teaching strategies. Based on the existing research, it might be assumed that pre-service teachers' achievement goal orientations are likely to influence their interactions with educational theories and research and consequently their adoption of beliefs about SRL and 2e students (highly able with dyslexia) as well as their self-efficacy beliefs tied to teaching for creativity.

This study aimed to examine: (1) profiles of pre-service teachers' achievement goal orientation, (2) whether pre-service teachers with different achievement goal orientation profiles differ in terms of their beliefs about SRL, perceived self-efficacy in teaching for creativity, and beliefs about highly able students with dyslexia.

The participants were 362 students – future elementary and subject teachers at two Croatian universities. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess the students' achievement goal orientations, their beliefs about SRL in the classroom settings, their self-efficacy in teaching creativity, and their beliefs about high-ability students with dyslexia (i.e., beliefs about their innovative, creative, and artistic thinking abilities, as well as visual learning and processing abilities). Latent profile analysis was used to investigate goal orientation profiles, and the Bolck-Croon-Hagenaars approach was used to explore group differences.

Three distinct goal orientation profiles were identified: mastery-oriented (focused on learning and self-improvement, but also on succeeding in studying), indifferent (average endorsement of all goal orientations), and success-oriented (focused on succeeding in studying and outperforming others). The results indicated that the mastery-oriented and success-oriented groups scored significantly higher on their perceived ability to foster student creativity in their future teaching practice and displayed more favourable beliefs about the possibilities of applying the principles of SRL in the classroom than the students who belonged to the indifferent group. The observed differences in the beliefs about the high ability of students with dyslexia indicated that the mastery-oriented students expressed more favourable beliefs in both domains of exceptional abilities of students with dyslexia compared to the indifferent students. In contrast, students in the success-oriented group scored higher than the indifferent students concerning the beliefs about visual learning and processing abilities of learners with dyslexia only.

The findings provided valuable insights into the relationship between the goal orientation profiles of pre-service teachers and the examined beliefs regarding learning and teaching and suggest the need to support pre-service teachers to develop adaptive teachers' beliefs conducive to effective teaching practice responsive to the educational needs of all students.

Keywords:

Pre-service teachers, achievement goal orientations, beliefs, self-regulation, creativity, 2e students, person-oriented approach.