This study investigates the relationship between achievement goals and the type of knowledge acquired during a University lecture course in Cognitive Psychology. Students’ achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance) were measured right before each of the 3 exams administered during the course. Each exam included items that assessed factual, conceptual, ...

Achievement goal research consistently reveals that mastery-avoidance goals (i.e., striving to avoid losses) are maladaptive, especially in comparison to mastery-approach goals (i.e., striving for gains). Nearly all of it has been done with children or young adults, however. Lifespan theories of motivation posit that people in late adulthood are more likely than young adults to strive toward ma...

University instructors’ goals for teaching are important quality. However, studies examining factors that shape goal adoption lacking. Using data from 785 instructors, we investigated whether implicit theories (ITs) about the malleability of intelligence constitute one such factor. Following achievement theory (AGT) and Dweck’s motivation framework, analysed differences in attributable to ITs, ...

The present research used correlational and experimental methods and two well-established social comparison paradigms to integrate and extend prior research from the achievement goal and social comparison literatures. In Study 1, a general disposition to engage in social comparison was positively correlated with each type of goal in the 2 × 2 model of achievement goals, suggesting that the desi...

The hierarchical model of achievement motivation proposes that, in addition to need achievement, fear of failure (FF) energizes achievement behaviour and predisposes individuals to adopt particular types of achievement goals. An impressive volume of cross-sectional support for this model has emerged, however, the causal assumptions of the model have never been tested. College students (N /356) ...

A structural equation modelling analysis was used to test the mediating effect of achievement goal factors on the relationship between Egyptian adolescents’ perception of parental involvement and academic achievement. The perception of Parental Involvement Scale and Achievement Goal Questionnaire was administered to a sample of 255 first-year students (135 males and 120 females) enrolled in a h...

We conducted 2 longitudinal meditational studies to test an integrative model of goals, stress and coping, and well-being. Study 1 documented avoidance personal goals as an antecedent of life stressors and life stressors as a partial mediator of the relation between avoidance goals and longitudinal change in subjective well-being (SWB). Study 2 fully replicated Study 1 and likewise validated av...