Age and Gender Differences in Achievement Goal Orientations in Relation to Physical Activity

Abstract

Our aim in the study was to examine age and gender differences in achievement goal orientations and their impact on self-reported persistence toward physical activities of middle school, high school, and college students. A total of 1254 students from four middle schools, two high schools, and one university participated in this study. Multiple regression analyses revealed that age, as a continuous variable, had a significant and positive effect on students’ mastery-approach goals, performance-approach goals, mastery-avoidance goals, and their persistence toward physical activities. In contrast, the endorsement of performance-avoidance goals was negatively related to students’ age. However, no significant gender differences or age-by-gender interactions were found for the four achievement goals. These findings suggest that future investigators should consider age (vs. grade) when examining maturational differences in young people’s achievement goal orientation in physical activity settings.

The impact of adolescent achievement goal orientation on learning anxiety: The mediation effect of peer interaction

“…This study showed grade differences in performanceavoidance goal orientation (e.g., performance-approach of junior high school students was significantly lower than that of senior high school students, but performance-avoidance and learning anxiety of junior high school students were significantly higher than that of senior high school students), which is partially consonant with some studies (Meece et al, 2006a;Guan et al, 2023) and inconsonant with others (Cecchini-Estrada et al, 2011;Guan et al, 2020). Guan et al (2023) revealed that age, as a continuous variable, had a significant and positive effect on students' mastery-approach goals, performance-approach goals, and mastery-avoidance goals, and a negative effect on students' performance-avoidance goals. However, we only found performance-avoidance goals were negatively related to students' age and performance-approach goals were positively related to students' age.…”

“…In this study, we found significant gender differences for masteryavoidance goal orientation, peer interaction, and learning anxiety (i.e., girls had slightly stronger mastery-avoidance goals, learning anxiety, and intimate relationships in peer interactions than their male counterparts, and lower social anxiety and common activity in peer interactions). Achievement goal results were partially consistent with some studies (Cecchini-Estrada et al, 2011;Lochbaum et al, 2019) and partially inconsistent with other previous findings (Meece et al, 2006b;Bahar et al, 2018;Guan et al, 2023;Hemi et al, 2023). Gender differences in learning anxiety were consistent with some previous research (Hill and Sarason, 1975;Maccoby and Jacklin, 1998;Ho et al, 2000), whereas other studies indicated there were no or fewer gender differences (Elsequest et al, 2010;Olmez and Ozel, 2012;Goetz et al, 2013).…”

“…Gender is one of the most widely researched variables in achievement studies, but only a few studies have examined gender differences in achievement goal orientation ( Meece et al, 2009 ), and studies that have focused on gender differences are somewhat inconsistent in their findings ( Middleton and Midgley, 1997 ; Duchesne et al, 2014 ; Bahar et al, 2018 ; Guan et al, 2023 ). In this study, we found significant gender differences for mastery-avoidance goal orientation, peer interaction, and learning anxiety (i.e., girls had slightly stronger mastery-avoidance goals, learning anxiety, and intimate relationships in peer interactions than their male counterparts, and lower social anxiety and common activity in peer interactions).…”

“…Nevertheless, a range of previous studies explored the relationship between gender and learning anxiety and tended to provide evidence that girls suffered more from anxiety (e.g., specifically math anxiety) in the academic context (Yüksel-Sahin, 2008;Devine et al, 2012Devine et al, ). 10.3389/fpsyg.2023 Some studies report significant gender differences favoring female students except for performance goal orientation (Meece et al, 2006b;Hemi et al, 2023), while other studies report nonsignificant findings (Greene et al, 2002;Sahin et al, 2016;Guan et al, 2023). A possible explanation is that mastery-avoidance goals require gaining some level of expertise or skills that one would wish to maintain, and unlike male students, female students' motivation to succeed may be more directed toward developing competence than toward intentions to outperform others or hiding their incompetence (Duchesne et al, 2014).…”

“…Achievement goal orientation is an individual’s perceived structure for achieving success, which is an important component of learning motivation. Achievement goal orientation develops with age but without gender differences ( Guan et al, 2023 ); however, there are inconsistent findings ( Meece et al, 2006b ; Duchesne et al, 2014 ). Elliot and McGregor (2001) proposed a widely accepted 2 × 2 achievement goal orientation theory.…”