Research on perceived instrumentality of students' academic work for attaining life goals has shown to have positive effects on academic achievement and motivation The purpose of the study was to examine the changes in perceived instrumentality over time and to identify how significant others such as parents, teachers and peers affect changes in…

Performance-avoidance orientation has been found to undermine students' academic motivation and achievement. Recognising groups of students with different levels and developments of performance-avoidance orientation makes it possible to try to intervene early in their school careers. In this study, 1168 12-13?year-old students attending the first…

Previous studies have indicated that situational factors can influence students' creativity. However, no studies have specifically examined the relationship between classroom goal structures and student creativity during real classroom activities. For this study, we recruited 232 seventh-grade students from Taipei City and randomly divided them…

The aim of this study was to analyse whether conducting physical education lessons according to different motivational climates leads to a significant difference between students' achievement goals, motivational strategies and attitudes towards physical education. Participants (81-ninth grade students) were allocated to one of three experimental…

This study investigated the relation between motivational goals and university intentions, school valuing and school achievement. The premise of this study is that motivational goals play a key role in academic values and achievement. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to establish the construct validity of the motivational measures drawn…

The major purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among properties of college students' self-set academic goals and academic achievement, using multiple theoretical perspectives. Using a personal goal-based research methodology, college students enrolled in a learning-to-learn course (N = 130) were asked to list 20 of their…

The purposes of the present study were to investigate (a) how the subjectively perceived achievement goals of significant others would predict the academic self-efficacy and achievement goals of Korean adolescents and (b) how those self-efficacy and achievement goals in turn predicted their achievement. We also compared these predictive…

Much of the research on achievement goal theory has focused on the roles of mastery and performance goals in academic engagement, thus the role of other goals such as social goals has mostly been neglected. The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of different kinds of social goals (affiliation, approval, concern, responsibility and…

Although the effects of achievement goals and working memory on academic performance are well established, it is not clear whether they jointly affect academic performance. Children from Primary 4 and 6 (N = 608) were administered (a) measures of working memory and updating from the automated working memory battery and a running span task, (b)…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the roles of two moderators--perceived competence and perceived autonomy--in the relationships of achievement goal orientations with a broad range of learning-related variables, including interest, effort, learning strategy use and academic achievement. Perceived competence and autonomy played…

In this study, the authors attempted to examine the roles of trait autonomy, trait self-efficacy, important goal-related task engagement and gender in predicting whether undergraduate university students are willing to set difficult goals. One hundred and thirty-six undergraduate communications students from the North-Eastern USA completed an…

The current investigation was designed to identify emotion states students experience during mathematics activities, and in particular to distinguish emotions contingent on experiences of success and experiences of failure. Students' task-related emotional responses were recorded following experiences of success and failure while working with an…

This study investigates attributional beliefs of Singapore secondary students in their English study and how they can be predicted by self-construal, competence and achievement goals. A total of 1,496 students were administered surveys on seven attributions, independent and interdependent self-construals, previous achievement, self-efficacy,…

Adolescents struggle with setting and striving for goals that require sustained self-discipline. Research on adults indicates that goal commitment is enhanced by mental contrasting (MC), a strategy involving the cognitive elaboration of a desired future with relevant obstacles of present reality. Implementation intentions (II), which identify the…

In this cross-sectional study we investigated to what extent autonomous and controlled motivation and social achievement goals are associated with students' emotional experiences at school. We found in a sample of 426 elementary school students, aged from 10 to 12 years, autonomous motivation (i.e. students' engagement in class activities because…