Classroom Goal Structure, Achievement Goal Orientation On The Students' Learning

The objective of this study was to investigate how classroom goal structures and achievement goal orientations were related to each other and to students' cognitive engagement, test anxiety, persistence and achievement.422 middle school students completed a self-report survey that assessed their perceived classroom goal structures, achievement goal orientations, and a collection of outcomes that included their use of learning strategies, test anxiety, persistence and achievement.Results indicated that:(1) Mastery goal structure had a significant positive correlation with mastery orientation, performance goal structure had significant positive correlations with performance-approach goals and performance-avoidance goals. Mastery structure and mastery orientation had significant positive correlations with adaptive outcomes in most areas. The patterns of relations for performance goal structure, and for performance-avoidance goals were detrimental in most outcomes. Performance-approach goals were positively related to test anxiety and not significantly related to the remaining outcomes.(2) Classroom goal structures were initially important predictors for each of the outcomes, however, the strength of these relations was substantially reduced after students' achievement goal orientations were accounted for. This pattern of findings suggested that students' perception of the goal structure of their classroom was related to the outcomes in large part through its association with students' adoption of personal goal orientations.(3 ) Different combinations of classroom goal structures and personal achievement orientations and their levels distinctly affected the collection of outcomes including the use of learning strategies, test anxiety and persistence. The interactions between classroom goal structures and achievement goal orientations did account for an increase in the amount of variance explained for the use of learning strategies and persistence.(4) Significant grade differences of students' classroom goal structures and achievement goal orientations are showed.