A Correlative Study On The Achievement Goal Orientation And English Achievement In Senior High School

Educational psychology theory and subject teaching are inseparable.Achievement goal orientation which refer to the potential causes of individual behavior has become a heated topic in the field of learning motivation.Learning output is the goal and driving force of learning.As the most important form of output,learning achievement is an important index to measure educational achievement.After searching the literature for nearly 20 years on the subject of "achievement goal orientation" and "English achievement" in CNKI,it is found that the previous studies lack the research on the first grade students,and do not distinguish the three groups of students among overachievers,average students and underachievers.From the point of view of research methods,the quantitative research method(questionnaire)is more,and the qualitative research is insufficient.For research content,there is only one study choose the college students as the subject to research the relationship between achievement goal orientation and English achievement.Based on the deficiencies of above three points,this study will take Grade 10 students as the study object and adopt the mixed research method to further study the correlation between achievement goal orientation and English academic achievement.There are 563 high school students in the research object.According to the students’ English scores in the middle school examination,this paper distinguishes them into three kinds of student groups: 154 overachievers,255 average students and 154 underachievers.Questionnaire and the semi-structured interviews complement each other to improve the scientific nature and effectiveness of the research results.This paper studies on their characteristics of achievement goal orientation,compares the similarities and differences among them and analyzes the correlation between achievement goal orientation and English achievement.In order to find some rules to help students adjust in the future,teachers should improve their English achievement,optimize their learning experience,and provide some reference for future research.The research findings can be summarized as follows:(1)the main achievement goal orientation of the whole and overachievers are achievement approach goal.From high to low of mean,their four dimensions of achievement goal orientation are:achievement approach goal,mastery avoidance goal,mastery approach goal and achievement avoidance goal.(2)The main achievement goal orientation of average students and underachievers are mastery avoidance goal.From high to low of mean,they are: mastery avoidance goal,achievement approach goal,mastery approach goal,achievement avoidance goal.(3)The achievement goal orientation of the whole,overachievers,average students and underachievers are at the middle level,and the lowest mean is the achievement avoidance goal.Only the achievement approach goal of overachievers is better.(4)The mean of four dimensions of underachievers are the lowest,which are lower than the whole students.(5)English achievement has positive correlation at moderate level,which has significant difference with achievement approach goal and mastery approach goal for the whole and overachievers.However,it has no correlation with mastery avoidance goal and achievement avoidance goal.Achievement approach goal can preview English achievement of the whole better.Mastery approach goal has a better prediction for overachievers’.(6)English achievement and achievement goal orientation are uncorrelated for average students and underachievers.