Research On The Effects Of Achievement Goals On Self-regulated Learning Of The Fifth Grade Students

Under the framework of social-cognitive of motivation and on the basis of achievementgoal theory, the present study investigates the goals and outcomes of the school work ofelementary students. Taking both the situated and dispositional components into account, thestudy discusses the effects of perceptions of classroom goal structures and individualachievement goals on self-regulated learning of Grade 5 students through three separatestudies.In study 1, grade 4 to 6 students' data were collected to revise the questionnaires on thebasis of previous researches. The trichotomy questionnaires include Perception of ClassroomGoals Structure Questionnaire-for Chinese subject (PCGSQ-C) and Individual AchievementGoals Questionnaire (IAGQ). In study 2, 394 participants from Grade 5 completed PCGSQ-C,IAGQ and Self-regulated learning questionnaire. The relationships among them wereconfirmed by structural equation model. Study 3 is a field experiment which examined theeffects of intervening teachers' behavior on students' perceptions of classroom goal structures,individual achievement goals and self-regulated learning. Results indicated:(1) Through item analyses and factor analyses,the revised questionnaires were found tomeet the psychometric criterion and can be used in study. Elementary school students'perceptions of classroom can be divided into classroom mastery goal structure, classroomperformance-approach goal structure and classroom performance-avoidance goal structure.The individual achievement goals can be divided into individual mastery goal, individualperformance-approach goal and individual performance-avoidance goals.(2)Perceptions of classroom goal structures are correlated with self-regulated learningthrough individual achievement goals. Mastery goals have positive effects on value,expectation, cognition/meta-cognition and resource management. The positive effects are alsobe found in Performance-approach goals on value and expectation, while there are negativeeffects on cognition/meta-cognition component. There are positive effects ofPerformance-avoidance goals on affect component (test anxiety) while negative effects onresource management component.(3)Two months of intervention based on achievement goals theory was shown toimprove students' perception of classroom mastery structure in elementary Chinese subject ofgrade 5 with active participation from the teacher. We did not find that individual achievementgoals and self-regulated learning could be significantly changed in the same period.