Achievement Goals and their Correlates among American and Chinese Students in Physical Education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine achievement goals and their correlates in physical education from a cross-cultural perspective. One hundred and eighty Chinese students and 121 Anglo-American students in fourth, fifth, and sixth grades completed questionnaires assessing their goal orientations, perceived ability, task choice, and satisfaction in physical education. Analyses indicated that the same two-dimensional factor structure of goal orientation, namely, task and ego orientation, cut across the two cultural groups in physical education. Cultural variations were found for the relationships between achievement goals and related motivational variables. The findings suggest that factorial structure of achievement goal holds cross-culturally, whereas the relationships vary as a function of cultural background of students.