Students’ achievement goals and beliefs of causes of success: Temporal relations and gender differences

Abstract

According to the goal orientation model, students’ achievement goals and beliefs are interrelated. Within this framework, research and theory have so far assumed that achievement goals are associated with students’ beliefs of causes of success, the latter representing students’ subjective beliefs about the factors contributing to success at school. So far, this line of research has been restricted to a few cross-sectional studies. We examined the temporal relations between achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals) and students’ beliefs of causes of success, the latter operationalized by asking the students to rate the subjective importance of diligence, effort, and ability for school success. Achievement goals and beliefs of causes of success were measured twice with a time lag of one school year with a sample of N = 2044 German secondary school students. Cross-lagged panel models were estimated to examine the temporal relations between achievement goals and beliefs of causes of success while controlling for students’ secondary school track, socio-economic status, and Grade Point Average. Former mastery goals were found to be positively related to later importance ratings of diligence for school success; former performance-approach goals were found to be positively related to later importance ratings of ability. Boys and girls were found to display similar relations among constructs but they showed differential mean levels on both the achievement goal constructs and the beliefs of causes of success. Implications for research on achievement goals and practice using intervention approaches are discussed.