A Structural Equation Modeling of the Relationships Between Parenting Styles, Students’ Personality Traits, and Students’ Achievement Goal Orientation

Recently, researchers have shown an increased interest in achievement goal orientation correlates. What is not yet clear is the detailed relationships among students’ goal orientation, students’ personality traits, and parenting style. In so doing, this research responds to the need to analyze the importance of parenting styles (permissive, authoritative, and authoritarian) and students’ traits (psychoticism, neuroticism, and extraversion) in explaining the achievement goal orientations (mastery approach, mastery avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance). In the exploratory correlational study, 586 Iranian students along with their parents were selected as the sample so as to evaluate the structure of the relationships between these variables. The results indicate that students’ psychoticism and neuroticism predict students’ goal orientations (positively: performance and mastery avoidance and negatively: mastery and performance approach) while extraversion did not. Only the authoritative style predicts mastery approach (positively) and psychoticism trait (negatively). Permissive and authoritarian styles do not directly or indirectly predict students’ goal orientations.

Psychological Birth Order and Achievement Goal Orientation of High School Students engaged in Shadow Education

The focus of the current study is to examine the nature of the relationship of goal orientation with psychological birth order. Likewise, it also looked into the ability of psychological birth order to influence the endorsement of achievement goals (mastery-approach and avoidance; performance- approach and avoidance). A total of 220 high school students engaged in shadow education answered the White-Campbell Psychological Birth Order Inventory (PBOI) and the Achievement Goal Questionnaire (AGQ). Based on the regression analysis performed, only the pairing of psychological birth order and performance-approach is significant while those of psychological birth order, mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, and performance-avoidance are not significant. Further analysis revealed that those who are psychologically firstborns tend to endorse the mastery-approach goal orientation while those who are psychologically youngest or lastborn endorses mastery-avoidance.

ACHIEVEMENT GOALS AND EXTRANEOUS LOAD PREDICT GERMANE LOAD: THE MEDIATING EFFECTS OF ACHIEVEMENT EMOTIONS

Purpose – Achievement emotions have been shown to mediate the association between achievement goals and learning performance, but no research to date has tested whether there is a similar process in predicting germane cognitive load. Based on the control-value theory of academic emotions (Pekrun, 2006), the present study tested a model to determine whether goal orientation and extraneous load were mediated by achievement emotions in predicting germane load. Methodology – This survey study involved 487 voluntary university students (N = 487; 61% women; ages 17-23) who were enrolled in a statistics class and these study participants were selected using the cluster random sampling technique. They responded to three adapted scales which were translated into Bahasa Indonesia. The scales were, namely the Achievement Goal Questionnaire (AGQ), Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ), and Cognitive Load Questionnaire. Data were collected 20 minutes before the statistics class ended and the data was then analyzed using bootstraped bias corrected (CI = 95%; N=5000) in Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Findings – The results of the structural equation modeling indicated that a mastery-approach goal was associated with higher germane load through higher enjoyment and lower anxiety, and a performance-avoidant goal was associated with lower germane load through higher anxiety. Moreover, extraneous load was negatively associated with germane load through enjoyment, but was positively associated with germane load through anxiety. Significance – These findings have implications in educational settings: for most students with a mastery-approach goal, and enjoyable activities are helpful, as with those that increase cognitive performance in processing learning information. The present research is the first study to show that achievement goals are linked to the capacity to process learning-relevant information, in part due to the emotions the student experiences in the learning environment.

University Teachers' Teaching Style and Their Students' Agentic Engagement in EFL Learning in China: A Self-Determination Theory and Achievement Goal Theory Integrated Perspective

As a relatively new dimension of student engagement, agentic engagement has received growing research interest in recent years, as it not only predicts academic achievement and other positive outcomes, but also benefits reciprocal teacher-student relations. In the educational context, teachers' teaching style exerts a crucial impact on students' engagement. However, research on how perceived teachers' teaching style influences students' agentic engagement is inconclusive. To address this lacuna, this study, taking an integrated perspective that draws on Self-determination Theory and Achievement Goal Theory, investigated the relationship of three types of teaching style (i.e., perceived autonomy support, social relatedness, and controlling) to university students' agentic engagement in EFL learning in China, especially through the mediation of mastery-approach goals and performance approach goals. Structural equation modeling showed that perceived autonomy support positively predicted agentic engagement through the mediation of mastery-approach goals, whereas perceived controlling negatively predicted agentic engagement through the mediation of performance-approach goals. Comparatively, the relationship of perceived social relatedness to agentic engagement was fully mediated by both mastery-approach and performance-approach goals. After discussing these results, practical implications as well as suggestions for future studies were given.

THE ROLE OF ACHIEVEMENT GOALS IN MOTIVATIONAL REGULATION AND FLOW IN LEARNING

"Appropriate self-regulation in motivation and experiencing flow in learning and other academic activities are important factors for success in study and psychological wellbeing. Previous studies suggested that achievement goals have role in student’s motivation for learning, but there is only partial knowledge regarding the role of achievement goals in motivational regulation and academic flow. The aim of this study was to explore: a) the role of achievement goals in motivational self-regulation and study-related flow; b) the incremental role of mastery self-talk motivational strategy in academic flow over the mastery-approach goal; c) the mediating role of mastery self-talk motivational strategy in the relationship between mastery-approach goal and academic flow. It was expected that both mastery-approach goal and mastery self-talk motivational strategy will have positive and incremental role in academic flow, and that the relationship between mastery-approach goal and academic flow would be mediated through using motivational strategy of mastery self-talk. The participants were 113 university undergraduate students studying mathematics (M= 20 years, 61% females). Self-report questionnaires assessing achievement goals, strategies used for self-regulation of motivation, and study-related flow were applied. Data analysis included regression analyses and mediational analyses. Regression analyses revealed that personal goal achievements explained 43% of variance in mastery self-talk strategy, 32% of variance in performance-approach self-talk strategy, 18% of variance in performance-avoidance self-talk strategy, 11% of variance in environmental control strategy, 7% of variance in self-consequating strategy, and 10% of variance in proximal goal strategy. Personal achievement goals explained 45% of variance in academic flow. Mastery-approach goal was predictive for explaining individual variance in most of positive motivational strategies and academic flow. In line with hypothesis, it was found that mastery self-talk mediated the relationship between mastery-approach goal and flow. The results underscore the importance of adopting mastery-approach goal and using mastery self-talk strategy in order to experience study-related flow."

What Predicts Quality of Learners’ Study Efforts? Implicit Beliefs and Interest Are Related to Mastery Goals but Not to Use of Effective Study Strategies

What goes into motivating students to take effective action? Ideally, students are not only motivated to invest time into their studying, but that they use their time in effective and productive ways. In the present study, we surveyed college undergraduates (N = 366) about how they engage in one of their college courses. Specifically, we explored how their motivation-related implicit beliefs (ease and difficulty mindsets, intelligence mindset;Dweck, 2000; Fisher and Oyserman, 2017) interact with perceived course interest and course importance to predict their achievement goal orientation for the course and the quality of their study strategies. We used a person-centered latent profiles analysis approach categorize meaningful profiles of implicit beliefs. Those who were likely to highly endorse motivation-increasing implicit beliefs and who found a course interesting were also more likely to hold mastery-approach goals; the relationship, however, was more complicated for performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. Implicit beliefs profiles themselves did not directly relate to strategy use, but goal orientation did. In particular, mastery-approach goal orientation was uniquely related to all three of the effective study strategies subscales (e.g., elaborative, standard testing, generative testing). Mastery-avoidance was related to less use of elaborative strategies, and performance-goals were not related to any type strategy use. Perceived course importance was positively related to increased passive and elaborative strategies, but not the standard testing or generative testing strategies. We discuss implications for interventions.

Achievement goals model validation: Is the 2X2 better than the Trichotomous?

<span>Achievement motivation evolved fast in the educational field. In this development, the trichotomous and the 2X2 models received myriad attention from the educational specialist. However, there is a debate about which is better between the two models. This study aimed to intercede this debate and argue that the study's duration should be accounted for in the validation. Approach goals should dominate new students' achievement goals, and old students' achievement goals will show the balance of approach and avoidance goals. For these reasons, this study gathers the data from 350 new students and 203 old students. Confirmatory factor analysis reveals that the trichotomous is the best model for new student segments. While for the old student segment, the 2X2 model shows its efficacy. Therefore, for the new students' segment, achievement goals consist of mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. For the old students, besides those three-goal orientations, mastery-avoidance goals are also included. As expected, the independent sample t-test shows that new students have higher mastery-approach and performance-approach goals than old students have. Self-efficacy is more influential in the new than old student segments, as shown by simple linear regression. This study is still stuck to a single cross-sectional design. Further research can utilize longitudinal research with segmental-based analysis and pay attention to gender, major, social class, or other potential moderation variables.</span>

Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Achievement Goals: A Look at Students’ Intrinsic Motivation and Achievement in Mathematics

The present research seeks to utilize Implicit Theories of Intelligence (mindsets) and Achievement Goal Theory to understand students’ intrinsic motivation and academic performance in mathematics in Singapore. 1,201 lower-progress stream students (596 males, 580 females, 25 missing data), ages ranged from 13 to 17 years (M = 14.68 years old, SD = 0.57), from 17 secondary schools in Singapore took part in the study. Using structural equation modeling, results confirmed hypotheses that incremental mindset predicted mastery-approach goals and, in turn, predicted intrinsic motivation and mathematics performance. Entity mindset predicted performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. Performance-approach goal was positively linked to intrinsic motivation and mathematics performance; performance-avoidance goal, however, negatively predicted intrinsic motivation and mathematics performance. The model accounted for 35.9% of variance in intrinsic motivation and 13.8% in mathematics performance. These findings suggest that intrinsic motivation toward mathematics and achievement scores might be enhanced through interventions that focus on incremental mindset and mastery-approach goal. In addition, performance-approach goal may enhance intrinsic motivation and achievement as well, but to a lesser extent. Finally, the study adds to the literature done in the Asian context and lends support to the contention that culture may affect students’ mindsets and adoption of achievement goals, and their associated impact on motivation and achievement outcomes.