Purpose
Family-Engaged Learning aligns with the findings of Stanford University researchers regarding the value of a self-transcendent purpose for learning in fostering academic self-regulation.
They found that "when it is difficult to make a task interesting it can be helpful to focus on creating a personal meaning by promoting a pro-social, self-transcendent purpose for learning."
Boring But Important: A Self-Transcendent Purpose for Learning Fosters Academic Self-Regulation
"This research was conducted with a large sample of low-income, mostly racial minority students, many of whom would be the first in their families to graduate from college. In this sample, those who expressed more of a self-transcendent purpose for learning as they were leaving high school also viewed tedious academic activities as more personally meaningful and both reported and behaviorally displayed greater academic self-regulation. They were also more likely to continue toward their stated goal of persisting in college. These effects were independent of cognitive ability. In addition, stronger endorsement of more typical self-oriented motives did not as consistently predict greater self-regulation, suggesting that there is a unique contribution of adding more self-transcendent motives." (p. 566-567)
Character
Middle School Transition from the Strengths Perspective: Young Adolescents' Character Strengths, Subjective Well-Being, and School Adjustment
"[T]ranscendence strengths were central in the prediction of students’ subjective well-being and emotional adjustment to school during seventh and eighth grades. Recently, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated the association between children and adolescents’ transcendence strengths, such as gratitude, hope, future-mindedness and purpose, with measures of well-being…. Similarly, a lack of purpose or meaning appears to contribute to poorer mental health and higher levels of psychological distress, lower, levels of happiness, and less resilience." (p.1175-1176)
Motivation
Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Goal Contents in Self-Determination Theory: Another Look at the Quality of Academic Motivation
“In a series of experimental studies, it was found that portraying activities as serving the attainment of an intrinsic rather than an extrinsic goal promotes deeper processing of the learning material, greater conceptual understanding of it, and both short-term and long-term persistence at relevant learning tasks.” (p.28)
Focus
The ROle of Future work goal motives in adolescent identity development: A longitudinal mixed-methods investigation
"[T]he evidence presented here suggests that focusing attention only on an adolescent's skills, desires, and interests may be too narrow in scope. These data show that when adolescents' identity development integrates a focus on ways in which they might contribute to the world beyond the self, a more fulfilling life is likely to follow." (p.216)
Family
The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life, William Damon
“Should it surprise us that so many young people look to family as the first source of meaning in their lives? …we found no gender differences between boys and girls in their designations of family as a source of purpose. What this finding does reveal is that young people today – boys and girls alike – feel connected to their families in ways that eluded many in the generations that immediately preceded them.” (p.53-54)
Discussion
Purpose as a moral virtue for flourishing
"[A]n interview-based psychological experiment showed that adolescents who reflected on and discussed purpose were able to make their purpose and meaning of life more sophisticated" (p.296)
Relevance
What We Know About Purpose & Relevance from Scientific Research
"Students value school when they understand how it is related to things they care about and how school can help them reach their long-term goals. Students value their schoolwork when they believe it is relevant to their lives and/or will help them connect to a purpose that is bigger than themselves—whether it is a contribution to their family, their community, society at large, or something else." (p.1)