Browsing by Author "Annaniemi, Iiris"

Goals. The aim of this study was to examine what sort of achievement goal orientation profiles it is possible to identify among high school students, how differently motivated students differ in social engagement and how school belongingness predicts students’ goal orientation profiles. Achievement goal orientations describe one’s general orientations and tendencies towards learning. They are associated with different patterns of goals, meaning, coping, and behavior. Social engagement describes the willingness to cooperate and share ideas with peers and school belongingness can be described as a social and emotional connection with school. It is important to examine the connection between motivation and social context in order to fully understand the field of achievement goal orientations and to support students’ motivation and development. Methods. The data (N = 1202) was collected from high school students from 34 different high schools in Helsinki during the spring 2018. Participants filled in questionnaires that measured mo-tivation, social engagement and school belongingness. In this study, person-oriented approach was utilized and in this approach, it is crucial to identify different subgroups and examine group differences. Participants were divided into groups by using Two Step Cluster analysis and group differences in social engagement were examined by analysis of variance. It was analyzed with multinomial regression analysis, how school belongingness predicts belonging into different achievement goal orientation groups. Results and conclusions. Five different achievement goal orientation groups were identified and the groups were labelled as mastery-, performance-, performance-avoidance-oriented, multiple-goals-oriented and avoidance-oriented. Mastery- and performance-oriented students expressed higher social engagement and social engagement avoidance at school than the other groups. School belongingness predicted belonging into different achievement goal orientation groups and especially external belongingness seems to be significant factor for students achievement goal orientations. It seems that striving for learning and mastery is especially beneficial in terms of social engagement and belongingness in school. The result was in line with previous studies examining the connection between motivation and social context.