The role of goal structures and peer climate in trajectories of social achievement goals during high school.

Abstract

Students’ social goals—reasons for engaging in interpersonal relationships with peers—are consequential for students’ interactions with their peers at school and for their well-being. Despite the salience of peer relationships during adolescence, research on social goals is generally lacking compared with academic goals, and it is unknown how these social goals develop over time, especially among high school students. The aim of the study was to assess trajectories of students’ social goals and to determine how relevant individual and contextual variables predicted initial levels and trajectories of students’ social goals. Participants were 9th through 12th grade students (N = 526) attending a U.S. high school. Students filled out surveys of their social goals (social development, social demonstration-approach, and social demonstration-avoidance) 6 times across 2 school years. Nonlinear growth curve analyses and piecewise growth curve analyses were used to assess trajectories of social goals across time. Students’ initial levels of social goals differed based on their gender, grade level, prior achievement, and perceptions of classroom goals structures and peer climate. Furthermore, despite substantial stability over time, the shapes of these goal trajectories were predicted by students’ gender, grade level, and perceptions of classroom goal structures and peer climate. In particular, students who perceived an increase in performance-avoidance classroom goals maintained higher demonstration social goals and decreased in developmental social goals over time, and students who perceived an increase in positive peer climate decreased in demonstration-avoidance social goals. Implications and directions for future research on social goals are discussed.

College Students’ Social Goals and Psychological Adjustment: Mediation via Emotion Regulation

“…Social achievement goals have been examined mostly with students from the United States (Jones, Mueller, Royal, Shim, & Hart, 2013;Makara & Madjar, 2015; with Greek elementary school students; Kuroda & Sakurai, 2011 with Japanese early adolescents). We could not discover any published work investigating social achievement goals among Mainland Chinese students.…”

Social achievement goals, needs satisfaction, and coping among adolescents

“…Presuming that social development goals reflect self-growth (Ryan & Shim, 2006), researchers have found social development goals to relate negatively to loneliness (Liem, 2016;Shim, Cho, & Wang, 2013) and positively to positive emotions (Shim, Wang, & Cassady, 2013), prosocial behavior (Rudolph, Abaied, Flynn, Sugimura, & Agoston, 2011), self-acceptance (Ryan & Shim, 2006), peer relationships satisfaction (Liem, 2016), grades (Liem, 2016;Makara & Madjar, 2015), and, relevant to the present study to adaptive coping in stressful situations with friends (Shin & Ryan, 2012).…”

“…Occasionally however, social demonstration-approach goals have been linked positively with joy (Shim, Wang, et al, 2013) and perceived popularity (Ryan & Shim, 2008). Regarding social demonstration-avoid goals, they have been found to associate with negative outcomes such as low perceived acceptance, anxiety and internalizing behavior, and avoidance coping, and sometimes with some positive ones, such as less aggression (Ryan & Shim, 2008) better grades (Makara & Madjar, 2015) and more collective efficacy (Jones & Ford, 2014).…”

How does mentoring by teachers improve the adjustment of academically at-risk students in high school?

“…Through the development of relationships of trust and security with teacher-mentors, these students could develop social goals that would raise their awareness of the relevance and usefulness of various learning behaviors (e.g., seeking help from teachers, trusting school staff, seeking help from teachers and peers). These "social" goals could compensate for weak mastery goals, thus enabling at-risk students to sustain their motivation and persevere in their studies (Makara & Madjar, 2015).…”