THE LINKS BETWEEN THE 9TH GRADE STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT GOALS ORIENTATIONS AND PERCEIVED SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

In the stage of middle adolescence educational goals become salient for students. However, their salience may change over the period of late adolescence (Massey et al, 2008). From the perspective of achievement motivation (Law, Elliot, & Murayama, 2012), achievement goals are considered to be cognitive-dynamic goals focused on educational competence. School goal structure refers to goal-related messages made salient by the policies, practices, and communication strategies that teachers employ with students (Park, et al., 2018). Students adopt the achievement goals that match the goals stressed in their environment. Pursuing mastery-approach goals is more beneficial for students’ deeper learning, well-being and long-term outcomes than pursuing performance goals (Elliot & Hulleman, 2017). Metaanalysis of research over the past 30 years showed that the relations between school goal structures and achievement goals are robust and largely unbiased. However, the understanding of the relation between goal structures and achievement goals is insufficient (Bardach,et al., 2019). Therefore, the objectives of this two-wave study are twofold: (1) to investigate how the 9th grade students’ achievement goal orientations and perceived school goal structure change over a school year and (2) to evaluate the (strength of the) relationship between the 9th grade students perceived school goal structures and achievement goals in two measurement waves ( W1 and W2). It is not clear how Covid-19 pandemic situation with emphasis on distance learning affected students‘ motivation, so it is important to evaluate students’ perceived school goals structure and achievement goals orientation in the 2020 spring semester (W2) as the different learning contexts might affect motivation and learning processes differently.