Learning processes in higher education: Providing new insights to understand the effects of motivation and cognition on specific and global measures of achievement.

Abstract

This chapter investigates the impact of motivational and cognitive processes on several achievement outcomes (final percentage and grades on a criterion-referenced test). The relation between achievement and self-efficacy beliefs, goal orientation, learning strategies and self-regulation was investigated through a correlational study while controlling for student’s previous performance. The results highlighted that final percentage is essentially modulated by motivational factors (mastery goal), whereas the performance on the test is related with cognitive factors (deep processing and surface processing). The implications of our results on the understanding of the relation between learning processes and academic achievement are discussed.