Interaction Effects of Teachers’ Educational Policies for Seminars and Students’ Learning Goal Orientation on Students’ Learning-as-Duty Conception

It is widely known that learning-as-duty conception negatively affects learning behaviors. In order to clarify basic knowledge to suppress students’ learning-as-duty conception, we examined interaction effects between teachers’ educational policies and students’ learning goal orientation on students’ learning-as-duty conception. The class practice was conducted in the School of Integrated Arts and Sciences of a Japanese public university. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 50 teachers who taught seminars for 2 years, and 189 undergraduate students who participated in the seminars during their third and fourth years of university. The findings suggested that (1) the effects of teachers’ educational policies on students’ learning-as-duty conception may change depending on the students’ learning goal orientation at the seminar level; (2) education that focuses on collaborative learning would be effective in suppressing students’ learning-as-duty conception in seminars consisting of students with high learning goal orientation; and (3) education that focuses on specialized learning can increase students’ learning-as-duty conception in seminars consisting of students with low learning goal orientation.