Browsing by Author "Kuusi-Naumanen, Anna"

Multidimensional perfectionism is characterised by a combination of two individual tendencies: perfectionistic strivings, which refer to striving for excessively high personal standards, and perfectionistic concerns, which refer to evaluating overly critically one’s own accomplishments. Achievement goal orientations refer to individuals generalized tendencies to favour certain types of goals in achievement settings. Together these frameworks address both the level and the quality of goals students set for themselves. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships between perfectionism and achievement goal orientations among upper secondary school students. This study ultilized a group-based approach and classified students based on their patterns of perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns. In previous studies, subgroups of perfectionists have differed in their achievement goal orientations. Here, it was further investigated whether these subgroups show meaningful differences also in their subject-specific (i.e., mathematics and English) achievement goal orien-tations. The participants in the present study were 434 general upper secondary school students from Southern Finland, who completed online questionnaires. Students were classified by using TwoStep cluster analysis, and group differences in achievement goal orientations in two different school subjects were examined through analyses of variance. Four distinct perfectionism profiles (perfectionists 21,3%, ambitious 23,8%, concerned 35,6% and non-perfectionists 19,2%) were identified. The ambitious students highlighted mastery-intrinsic, mastery-extrinsic, and performance-approach orientations, while the concerned highlighted relatively more performance-avoidance and avoidance orientations. The perfectionists displayed high values in all orientations, while the non-perfectionists had relatively low value in all orientations, except for the avoidance orientation. Differences in subject-specific orientations were rather similar in both subjects, yet small differences were found. High concerns seemed to be linked with performance- and avoidance orientations. Especially the perfectionists, but also the concerned, are at the risk of adopting maladaptive goals and it might be useful to consider this in teaching and student counselling.