  When considering performing an Introductory Physics for Life Sciences course
transformation for one's own institution, life science majors' achievement
goals are a necessary consideration to ensure the pedagogical transformation
will be effective. However, achievement goals are rarely an explicit
consideration in physics education research topics such as metacognition. We
investigate a sample population of 218 students in a first-semester
introductory algebra-based physics course, drawn from 14 laboratory sections
within six semesters of course sections, to determine the influence of
achievement goals on life science majors' attitudes towards physics. Learning
orientations that, respectively, pertain to mastery goals and performance
goals, in addition to a learning orientation that does not report a performance
goal, were recorded from students in the specific context of learning a
problem-solving framework during an in-class exercise. Students' learning
orientations, defined within the context of students' self-reported statements
in the specific context of a problem-solving-related research-based course
implementation, are compared to pre-post results on physics problem-solving
items in a well-established attitudinal survey instrument, in order to
establish the categories' validity. In addition, mastery-related and
performance-related orientations appear to extend to overall pre-post
attitudinal shifts, but not to force and motion concepts or to overall course
grade, within the scope of an introductory physics course. There also appears
to be differentiation regarding overall course performance within health
science majors, but not within biology majors, in terms of learning
orientations; however, health science majors generally appear to fare less well
on all measurements in the study than do biology majors, regardless of learning
orientations.
