From teachers' personal achievement goals to students’ perceptions of classroom goal structures: Via student-oriented goals and specific instructional practices

Abstract

To elucidate how teachers' goals matter for instructional practices and classroom goal structures, we conducted a study with 84 secondary school teachers and their 1447 students. Students reported classroom goal structures and specific mastery- and performance-oriented instructional practices. Teachers reported personal achievement goals and student-oriented goals. Two-level modeling indicated that mastery-oriented instructional practices were predicted by teachers' student-oriented goals and, indirectly, by their personal mastery goals (positively) and performance approach goals (negatively), while performance-oriented instructional practices were negatively predicted by teachers' personal mastery goals. Classroom goal structures were closely related to these instructional practices and were indirectly predicted by teachers’ goals.