I often write about research studies from various field and how they can be applied to the classroom. I write individual posts about ones that I think are especially significant, and will continue to do so. However, so many studies are published that it’s hard to keep up. So I’ve started writing a “round-up” of some of them each week or every other week as a regular feature:

The Downside of Planning is by Art Markman. It provides evidence for what most of us probably know already — that we have a much better chance of succeeding in goals if we focus on fewer of them at a time. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On Students Setting Goals.

Another goal-related study found that:

“When people have set for themselves targets about how much they should engage in a behavior (say, if the behavior is how much to exercise per week), asking them to predict whether they will exercise in the next week makes them think about what they think they should do,” write authors Pierre Chandon (INSEAD), Ronn J. Smith (University of Arkansas), Vicki G. Morwitz (New York University), Eric R. Spangenberg, and David E. Sprott (both Washington State University). “This reduces the chances that they will simply repeat their past behavior and hence breaks their habits.”

This research re-emphasizes, I think, the importance of having students regularly review goals and plan what they are going to do the following week, which is what we do in our classroom.

Sticking to our goals: What’s the best approach for success? reports on another study that showed evidence for another thing most of us know — setting short-term goals (in other words, small “wins”) that lead towards bigger long-term goals increases one’s chance of success.