Peer Conformity Academic Achievement Motivation And Achievement Goals

Author : Wing-Yi Rebecca Cheng
Publisher : Open Dissertation Press
ISBN 13 : 9781361110713
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (17 download)

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Download or read book Effects of Social Goals on Student Achievement Motivation written by Wing-Yi Rebecca Cheng and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Effects of Social Goals on Student Achievement Motivation: the Role of Self-construal" by Wing-yi, Rebecca, Cheng, 鄭穎怡, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled Effects of Social Goals on Student Achievement Motivation: The Role of Self-Construal Submitted by Rebecca Wing-yi CHENG for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in October 2005 Students' academic motivation is usually investigated with reference to their achievement goals. Achievement goals are generally classified into two types: learning goals and performance goals. Students who pursue learning goals do schoolwork for the sake of acquiring knowledge while students who pursue performance goals do schoolwork for the sake of demonstrating ability. Although the effects of learning goals and performance goals have received substantial support from previous research, recent studies have increasingly indicated a need to include social goals in investigation so as to develop a more comprehensive understanding of achievement motivation. Doing schoolwork for the sake of authority figures, a subset of a large pool of social goals, was studied in the current research. In Study One, 35 Chinese and 35 Caucasian students were asked to list the reasons why they did their schoolwork. Results revealed that students reported substantial proportion of reasons related to authority figures, especially for Chinese students. This qualitative study demonstrates a high prevalence of social goals among students and justifies the inclusion of social goals in research of achievement goals. Both Studies Two and Three were quantitative research. They were conducted to investigate the effects of social goals on motivation outcomes, using self-construal as a moderator. In Study Two, 134 Chinese students were asked to complete a questionnaire measuring their self-construal, social goals and avoidance behavior. Results indicated that the prediction of social goals was different for students with different self-construals. For those with high independent self, social goals predicted high avoidance behavior; but for those with high interdependent self, social goals predicted low avoidance behavior. Study Three further investigated the effects of social goals in an experimental setting. In this study, both self-construal and social goals of the participants (107 Chinese students) were manipulated. Results revealed that when independent self was primed, those in the social goals condition would have a lower tendency to endorse learning goals but a higher tendency to choose a course that concealed their poor performance than those in the condition with no social goals. In contrast, when interdependent self was primed, those in the social goals condition would have a higher tendency to endorse learning goals and to choose a course that promoted learning than those in the condition with no social goals. The results of Studies Two and Three consistently support the argument that social goals would yield maladaptive motivation patterns for people with independent self but adaptive patterns for people with interdependent self. These findings imply that the meanings of social goals may be different for these two groups of people. For people with independent self, working for the sake of authority figures may represent a demonstration of ability to authority figures; while for people with interdependent self, social goals may represent a more internalized type of achievement goal. The current research sheds lights on the new