Browsing by Author "Pyyhtiä, Anne"

The aim of the present study was to examine what kinds of achievement goal orientation profiles can be identified among sixth-graders and how students with different profiles differ with respect to their education-related personal goals and goal appraisals as well as their academic achievement. Usually researchers have adopted a variable-centred approach and investigated interactions between variables but this study adopted a person-centred approach, which enables the investigation of multiple goals simultaneously. The data used in this study were drawn from the Mind the Gap -research project (2013-2017), funded by the Academy of Finland. The participants were 761 sixth grade students from 32 schools. Utilizing K-means cluster analysis, groups of students with different motivational profiles were identified. The open-ended answers concerning students' education-related personal goals were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Group differences in goal appraisals and academic achievement were examined by means of analysis of variance (ANOVA). Four different achievement goal orientation profiles were found and they were labelled as: indifferent, mastery-oriented, success-oriented and avoidance-oriented. Indifferent students were aware of the importance of school but they were also characterized by avoidance tendencies. Mastery-oriented students predominantly emphasized learning and strove for self-improvement. Success-oriented students aimed for both relative (i.e., outperforming others) and absolute (i.e., getting good grades) success, but they also wanted to learn. Finally, avoidance-oriented students were the least motivated towards schoolwork. The mastery-oriented and success-oriented students had the highest academic achievement and they were most committed and used most time and effort to their educational goals. Indifferent and success-oriented students were more stressed about their educational goals than mastery-oriented students. These results support the idea that schools should recognize and pay attention to differently motivated students. For example, avoidance-oriented students need more aid and support in school engagement than others. Furthermore, success-oriented students need encouragement to study for themselves than others. Also, schools should be aware of that performance-oriented learning environment may increase the social comparison and competition behaviors which may impair motivation.