Abstracts - Earli

places less emphasis on the content of a goal and maintains that congruence between individualand environmental goals is crucial for SWB. The role of the content and person-environment fit oflife goals for SWB and interest was examined in a sample of over 1700 German universitystudents. Both individual life goals and the perceived life goals of fellow students were assessed.In line with a self-determination perspective on life goals, extrinsic goals were negatively andintrinsic goals positively associated with well-being. In line with a person-environment fitperspective, congruence between individual goal profiles and the perceived goal profiles of fellowstudents was positively associated with SWB and interest. Subsequent in-depth analyses showedthat congruence between individual and perceived environmental goals was more beneficial forSWB than incongruence in the case of affiliation goals, and that agreement on affiliation goalsbeing important was related to higher SWB than agreement on affiliation goals being unimportant.Thus, our results suggested that both the content of life goals and the person-environment fit wererelated to SWB and interest. More generally, students’ perceptions of their environment wererelated to their emotional and motivational experiences, substantiating the notion that "the peoplemake the place."E 629 August 2007 14:30 - 16:30Room: -1.63SymposiumStrong (and weak) methods in studying teachingChair: Harm H. Tillema, Leiden University, NetherlandsOrganiser: Juan Jose Mena Marcos, University of Salamanca, SpainOrganiser: Harm H. Tillema, Leiden University, NetherlandsDiscussant: Harm H. Tillema, Leiden University, NetherlandsAim: This symposium explores and clarifies solutions that researchers of teaching haveconstructed to link their ‘object’ of study to their ‘method’ of finding evidence. Reciprocity oralignment between what a researcher intends to find and how a research design is constructed willframe the findings that are reported from a study. A key concern would be how collected evidencerepresents the process under study. We explore the contention: the more closely a selected methodof study (i.e., research design) represents the object of study, the more accurate it can depict(figure) what we maintain about teaching (ground). We follow a searchlight strategy in ourexploration of research designs that could inform a researchers’ debate on data collection and dataanalysis on teaching. This is done by scrutinizing the methods chosen in studies of teaching, as tooffer a platform on how to comprehend strong (and weak) research designs As a result of thisdiscussion we aim at establishing criteria for research designs in the study of teaching. Relevance:In this symposium, we consider how methods chosen to study teaching are aligned withresearchers’ interpretations (approaches) of teaching (i.e., how they represent the object understudy). Specifically we look for: (a) articulation of the object of study, (b) coverage of(components of the) object/process being studied and (c) ways of measurement. Based on thesecriteria we invited participant/researchers to explicate the way in which they studied teaching asarticulated through their: object, method and analysis of research. In representing studies ofteaching in this way we try to gain consistent knowledge about solutions or standards to capturethe dynamic nature of the research process in teaching. It is not aimed at offering guidelines for– 263 –