Abstract
Achievement goal researchers have primarily focused on mastery and performance goals, while goals concerning the social reasons for wanting to achieve academically have only been minimally explored. The aim of the current study was to extend previous research, by investigating the influence of social achievement goals on different types of academic engagement. Namibian primary school students ( N = 117) answered questionnaires regarding their mastery, performance, and work avoidance achievement goals, their social achievement goals (i.e., affiliation, approval, concern, responsibility, status), and their academic engagement (i.e., behavioral, emotional, agentic). Hierarchical regression analyses, that controlled for the effects of mastery, performance, and work avoidance achievement goals, prior achievement, as well as grade-level, revealed that social achievement goals were able to account for a significant additional proportion of variance in engagement. Social status goals predicted behavioral engagement, while social concern goals predicted emotional and agentic engagement. Our findings indicate that social achievement goals are a distinct construct that can contribute to the current understanding of student motivation and academic engagement.
Highlights
The primary aim of many educational stakeholders is to ensure the engagement and academic success of students, with motivation having been described as an essential factor
Affectional, and cognitive components of each social achievement goal, and the findings reported by King et al (2012), we hypothesized that (1) social concern, responsibility, and status goals would positively predict behavioral engagement; (2) social concern and Affiliation Goals Approval Goals Concern Goals Responsibility Goals
The social achievement goals consisted of four items each and included affiliation (e.g., “I want to do well at school so that I can feel close to my group of friends.”), approval (e.g., “I want to do well at school so that I can get praise from my teachers.”), concern (e.g., “I want to do well at school so that I can help other students with their work.”), responsibility (e.g., “I want to do well at school to show that I am being a responsible student.”), and status goals2 (e.g., “I do good schoolwork so that I can get a good job in the future.”)
Summary
The primary aim of many educational stakeholders is to ensure the engagement and academic success of students, with motivation having been described as an essential factor. The current study draws upon achievement goal theory, as a conceptual framework to investigate students’ academic engagement and social motivation This is a prominent framework within the field of educational psychology, which focuses on the goals that students pursue when engaging in academic tasks. Concerning achievement goal orientations, Anderman and Patrick (2012) report that the specific goal orientation held for a particular academic task will determine the quality of engagement with the task; engagement is adaptive for learning and assists the attainment of the espoused goal In line with this theoretical notion, most research has demonstrated that mastery goals positively predict behavioral and emotional engagement (Datu & Park, 2019; Gonida et al, 2009). Datu and Park (2019) found that performance goals positively predict agentic engagement, while no association was found with mastery goals
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
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
