This action research project explored the value of target setting as a means of improving progress for vocational learners.
The principal focus was on collecting evidence about the nature and impact of target setting, and to initiate an open dialogue on target setting as a teaching strategy and means of recording targets. The project collected data on learner responses for four discrete groups of learners and facilitated discussion between the tutors for those groups and a wider cohort of teachers.
The project identified a number of priorities around target setting for learners. These included: the value of feedback from their teacher; the power of working with other students in helping them to learn; the importance of aspirational targets; the motivational value of setting targets, and the importance for their sense of autonomy of setting their own targets.
emCETT