Abstract
Most studies utilizing a person-oriented approach to investigating students’ achievement goal orientation profiles have been domain-general or focused on a single domain (usually mathematics), thus excluding the possibility of identifying distinct subject-specific motivational profiles. In this study, we looked into this by examining upper secondary school students’ subject-specific achievement goal orientation profiles simultaneously in mathematics and English. As distinct profiles might contribute to how students invest time and effort in studying, we also examined differences in perceived subject-specific cost (i.e., effort required, emotional cost, opportunity cost) among students with different profiles and how this was linked with students’ more general academic well-being (i.e., school engagement, burnout). The 434 Finnish general upper secondary school students participating in the study were classified based on their achievement goal orientations in the two subjects using latent profile analysis, and the predictions of the latent profile on distal outcomes (i.e., measures of cost and academic well-being) were examined within the mixture model. Five divergent achievement goal orientation profiles were identified: indifferent (29%), success-oriented (26%), mastery-oriented (25%), English-oriented, math-avoidant (14%), and avoidance-oriented (6%). The English-oriented, math-avoidant students showed the most distinct domain-specificity in their profile but, in general, profiles indicated more cross-domain generality than specificity. Overall, mastery-oriented students showed the most adaptive academic well-being, while avoidance-oriented students were the least engaged. Success-oriented students were characterized by high multiple goals in both subjects, elevated costs, and high scores on both positive (engagement) and negative (burnout) well-being indicators. The English-oriented, math-avoidant students perceived studying math as costly. The findings suggest that addressing students’ achievement motivation in different subjects may be useful for recognizing factors endangering or fostering student learning and well-being.
Highlights
Students’ achievement motivation plays an essential role in everyday school life
In order to further illustrate the characteristics of the motivational profiles, we investigated how students with different subject-specific goal orientation profiles differed in terms of subject-specific perceived cost and academic well-being by employing the BCH method
Our results demonstrated that meaningful patterns of goal orientations in the domains of mathematics and English in the general upper secondary school context emerged
Summary
Students’ achievement motivation plays an essential role in everyday school life. The school environment often places emphasis on performance as students are confronted with different types of tasks and communicated expectations, by some of which they are graded. Striving for a goal requires investing time and effort, implying that there always is some subjective cost in play. This aspect of motivational trade-off is incorporated in the expectancy-value theory (Eccles et al, 1983) and, empirically somewhat neglected until the recent years, has shown to provide insights into the predictions of students’ avoidance motivation and behavior (e.g., avoidance goals, negative classroom affect: Jiang et al, 2018; drop-out intentions: Perez et al, 2014) and even well-being (Watt et al, 2019). A combined look at the perceived cost and achievement goals may help to explain students’ achievement behavior beyond positive purposes (Conley, 2012; Jiang et al, 2018) and, provide a more comprehensive view onto the complexity of students’ subject-specific motivational processes and their implications on study-related well-being
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
