Achievement Goal Orientation Research, Working Memory Span And Control Extract

The present dissertation had two basic purposes.The first is to explore the relation between achievement goal orientations and working memory's function.The second is to determine the rationality of the 2×2 achievement goals construct. We hypothesized: Each achievement goal had a distinct effect from another goal on working memory and controlled retrieval . And there was a different effect between stable dispositional goal orientations and situated achievement goals. Test anxiety (especially worry) was the mediator between dispositional goal orientations and working memory span. The difficulty, interfering condition and participants'working memory span perhaps were three moderators of the relation between situated goal orientations and the function of working memory . In order to test these assumpation, we administered three studies. In study 1, 535 participants from middle-school completed the Four Category Achievement Goal Scale ,Worry/Emotionality Questionary and Operation-Word Span Test. By Correlation and Multi-regression analysis, we investigated the relationship between dispositional achievement goal orientations and working memory span. In study 2, 245 samples from study1 were divided into four groups. Each group entered into a induced goal orientation situation respectively. The aim of study2 is to investigate situated goal orientations'influence on working memery span, the effect of task difficulty and the effect of working memory span the participants had been measured in study1. In study 3, participants who were the same as study2 administered category fluency test in with-interfering and without-interfering conditions . And then investigated the effect of situated goal orientations on controlled retrieval. Results indicated: (1) There was a particular relationship between each dispositional achievement goal and working memory span. Performance-approach goal had a direct or indirect positive relation with working memory span. Only emotionality was a mediator between performance-approach goal and working memory span. Master-approach goal related positively to working memory span, but test anxiety was not a mediator. Performance-avoidance goal had a indirect negative relation with working memory span, the mediators were worry and emotionality. Master-avoidance had no significant relation with working memory span. (2) Situated achievement goals had significant effects on working memory span, but some of these effects were different from dispositional achievement goals'effects. Among situated goals, master-approach goal had a positive effect.