Abstract
The purpose of this study is to determine the explanatory and predictive relationship pattern between university students’ goal orientation behaviours and their academic achievement. The study group consisted of 259 university students. A ‘2x2 Achievement Goal Orientations Scale’ was used to determine the students’ goal orientation behaviours. The average grades that the students got during a term were taken as the academic achievement criteria. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results suggested that learning approach, learning avoidance and performance approach are not significant predictors of academic achievement at the p<.05 level. The findings also indicated that the relationship between learning avoidance and performance approach; learning avoidance and learning approach; learning approach and performance avoidance; performance approach and performance avoidance; and learning avoidance and performance avoidance are significant at the p<.01 level. The results also displayed that the relationship between performance approach and learning approach is significant at the p<.05 level. On the other hand, the relationship between performance approach and learning approach along with the relationship between learning approach and performance avoidance was found to be negative unlike the other relationships between the variables. Key words: Goal orientation theory, academic achievement.
Highlights
A number of researchers have long been engaged in studying the factors that influence academic achievement
According to Schermelleh-Engel et al (2003), one of the ways to test a model is to determine the values of certain goodness-of-indexes and compare them with the acceptable values
The primary objective of this study was to identify the relationship between students‟ goal orientation behaviours and their academic achievement
Summary
A number of researchers have long been engaged in studying the factors that influence academic achievement. Maehr and Meyer (1997) postulated the idea that “motivation has been is and probably will be at the heart of teaching and learning”, and everybody has certain assets as far as motivation is concerned. In other words, they argue that the fundamental issue is not whether individuals are motivated since they are presumed to be already motivated. They argue that the fundamental issue is not whether individuals are motivated since they are presumed to be already motivated At this point, the primary concern is why and how they feel motivated towards a goal (Kaplan and Maehr, 2007) rather than having or lacking motivation. For questions such as why some individuals take the plunge and set higher objectives than others and why some people constantly struggle to improve themselves while others do not, DeShon and Gillespie (2005) assert that goal orientation theory partly gives answers to these questions
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