Adolescent Academic, Social and Future Achievement Goal Orientations: Implications for Achievement by Gender and Parental Education

Abstract

Research on social aspects of academic motivation is scarce. Based on two nationally representative cohorts within the Swedish longitudinal ETFproject, the study examined (a) relationships between academic mastery/performance, social and future achievement goal orientations in the Swedish grade 9 compulsory school (2008/2014); (b) their implications for academic achievement; (c) interaction effects by gender and parental education. Social responsibility exerts the strongest effect on achievement; independently and combined. Girls strive for these goals more often than boys. All orientations are important for achievement; and for disadvantaged students in particular. The findings are important for interventions on enhancing motivation and reducing achievement gaps between student groups.

Student achievement goals and psychosomatic health complaints among Swedish adolescents: the role of sex

“…However, the Swedish school system has not undergone any substantial reforms likely to influence student goal orientations within the past six years. In addition, goal orientations have proved to be relatively stable over cohorts, as is shown by previous studies within the ETF-project (Giota and Bergh 2020). Also with respect to psychosomatic health, it is likely to reflect the current state among adolescents.…”

“…The achievement goal orientation items intended to measure Mastery and performance, included in the ETF survey was used. The items were developed in 2004 within ETF based on previous research by Author (Giota 2010;Giota and Bergh 2020), and somewhat modified items from the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Surey (PALS) (Midgley et al 1997).…”

“…Achievement goals reflect the various reasons or purposes students have for engaging in learning activities. Research generally report girls to have stronger goal orientations compared to boys, and students from families with higher education also have stronger orientations compared to those from families with lower education (Giota and Bergh 2020). These achievement goals are also of significant importance for student achievement (Schunk et al 2008).…”

“…However, it is important to recognize that the associations may differ between different classifications of adolescents in order to facilitate effective health promoting interventions, which is rarely done. In particular, given that adolescent mental health differ by gender, and that student achievement show different patterns for boys and girls (OECD 2019), but also that boys and girls seems to differ with respect to goal orienations (Giota and Bergh 2020), it is reasonable to hypothesize that the link between goal orientations and psychosomatic health may differ by gender. This would, potentially, also have strong implications for health promotion.…”

Academic Goal Orientation: New Insights and Cultural Adaptation of Academic Goal Orientation Questionnaire into the Turkish Language

“…A reasonable ground for this isolation is that many recent studies have been published investigating the relationships between the construct of goal orientation and self-efficacy (Curelaru, 2020); goal orientation and emotional intelligence and burnout (Supervía et al, 2020a); goal orientation and engagement and self-concept (Supervía et al, 2020b); goal orientation and emotional intelligence and burnout (Supervía and Bordás, 2020); goal orientation and positive coping strategy and motivational beliefs (Subaşı, 2020); goal orientation and academic achievement (Giota and Bergh, 2020;Moghimi, 2020); goal orientation and individual characteristics (Lamm et. al., 2020); and goal orientation and motivation (Hidajat et al, 2020).…”