On June 16th a Forum on Goal Setting took place at the Erasmus Rotterdam Business School (RSM), prior to the inaugural address of Michaéla Schippers. Title of the forum was: Goal setting reduces inequalities and boosts student performance
Professor Steef van de Velde, Dean of RSM, opened the forum. He tells the audience about the mission of RSM to contribute to positive change by not only educate students, but also build their character to be an agent of these positive change. The goal setting intervention is combined with the I WILL movement to a deceptively simple, but often deeply revealing three-stage online writing exercise that begins about three weeks after the start of the first Bachelors trimester. The intervention will be integrated in the BSC and MSc curricula and will be the signature intervention of RSM.
Ad Scheepers, former student counsellor and policy advisor at RSM, presents research findings on two cohorts, 2008 and 2013. Several educational interventions that were implemented since 2009 in order to increase BSc study success at RSM. Ad shows that the number of interventions a student participated in significantly correspond with the increase of graduation rates and GPA.
Daniël Roos, director of JINC!, an organisation which gives young people from 8 to 16 years of age the opportunity to experience what the labour market has to offer and what skills one needs for specific jobs by offering projects organised by volunteers of 150 enterprises to mainly underprivileged children. He aims to implement the Goal Setting intervention in JINC’s projects and programmes, but has to overcome some obstacles first.
After Daniël’s presentation Michaéla Schippers launched the Erasmus Centre for Study and Career Success (E=CS2, https://www.erim.eur.nl/centres/erasmus-centre-for-study-and-career-success/). This centre aims to help more students to achieve their goals by implementing the Goal Setting intervention in more educational and business environments. Research on the effects of Goal Setting will also be an important aspect of the Centre. MIchaéla invites all interested parties who want to participate to contact the centre.
After an interactive panel discussion with the audience, in which constraints and doubts about broad implementation of Goal Setting were discussed, Professor Edwin Locke, the godfather of Goal Setting, contributes through Skype, thanking Michaéla for her contribution to this field of research.
A video registration of the forum can be found on https://media.eur.nl/Mediasite/Play/39f7661cdfa84a7a86513e8e877825931d from 48:30.
On July 11th there will be another interesting event around Goal Setting by Dominique Morisano, more information will follow soon.