Achievement goal orientations and subjective well-being: A person-centred analysis

Abstract

This study examined whether students with different achievement goal orientation profiles differ in terms of subjective well-being (i.e., self-esteem, depressive symptoms, school-related burnout, and educational goal appraisals). Six groups of students with unique motivational profiles were identified. Observed differences in subjective well-being indicated that goals related to self-improvement and growth were positively associated with various indices of well-being, whereas avoidance tendencies and concerns with validating or demonstrating one's competence were linked with different types of adjustment problems. Findings demonstrate the importance of including measures of well-being when evaluating the role of achievement goal orientations in learning and achievement.

Introduction

Much of the individual variation in achievement behaviour can be explained by the different goals students hold or adopt in achievement situations (Urdan, 1997). Although a large body of research has examined how such goals relate to various types of achievement-related outcomes (Pintrich, 2000b), less is known about how achievement goals relate to students' subjective well-being. This is quite surprising considering the fact that already the seminal work on achievement goals explicitly suggested that the endorsement of certain goals is likely to be associated with different patterns of coping and emotion (Dweck and Elliott, 1983, Nicholls, 1984). The general assumption was that some students have a stronger need to validate their competence than others and that this tendency makes them more vulnerable to situations which potentially imply incompetence or otherwise pose a threat to one's self-esteem.

A series of studies by Elliott and Dweck (1988) revealed two general types of coping patterns among young children in achievement situations. Helpless children were characterized by challenge avoidance, low persistence in the face of difficulty, and negative affect and negative self-cognitions when confronting obstacles, whereas an opposite pattern characterized mastery-oriented children. Consistent with the assumptions, helpless children were more driven by performance goals (i.e., wanting to demonstrate competence) whereas mastery-oriented children were striving for learning goals (i.e., wanting to gain competence). Kaplan and Maehr (1999) extended this work by looking at the role achievement goals may play in facilitating the well-being of young students. They found that the pursuit of mastery goals was positively associated with general indices of well-being, such as emotional tone, peer relationship, and impulse control, and with school-related affect. In contrast, pursuing performance goals was negatively related to emotional tone and impulse control, and with affect at school. Kaplan and Maehr (1999) concluded that achievement goals are linked with emotions and cognitions that not only contribute to effective learning but also relate to well-being more generally. This view was also confirmed by Roeser, Strobel, and Quihuis (2002), who found further support for the above scheme in a more general context, linking goals and motivational tendencies to general socio-emotional functioning. Their results showed that, compared to mastery-oriented students, helpless students had lower self-esteem and higher levels of anger and sadness, and they were less engaged and reported more withdrawal behaviour in school. Similarly, based on Dweck's work, Dykman (1998) proposed a goal-orientation model for explaining and predicting depression. The model predicted that compared to growth-seeking (i.e., mastery-oriented) people, validation-seeking (i.e., performance-focused) people would show greater anxiety in anticipation of a stressful event and greater self-esteem loss, task disengagement, and depression after a negative event. Again, support for these predictions was found in several studies (see also Sideridis, 2005).

Together, these studies suggest that individuals' subjective well-being is associated with the kinds of goals and outcomes they seek to attain. More specifically, it appears that goals related to self-improvement and growth are related to better socio-emotional functioning and more positive self-evaluations, whereas the tendency to validate and demonstrate one's personal qualities is more linked with adjustment problems and socio-emotional vulnerability. In this study, we extended this prior work by focusing on a broader set of achievement goal orientations, employing a person-centred approach to the study of individual differences (see Niemivirta, 2002a, Roeser et al., 2002), and including additional domain-specific indices of well-being that are directly linked with school and education.

Following Boekaerts and Niemivirta (2000), we assumed that students' motivational tendencies influence the way they appraise school-related events. Whether the focus is on increasing resources (e.g., gaining knowledge, learning new skills) or maintaining emotional well-being (e.g., trying to not fail or look incompetent) depends on how the events are appraised and how these appraisals relate to the person's available resources (see Boekaerts, 1993). The personal relevance or importance of any event is evaluated in relation to the person's goals and the possible implications of the outcomes of the event. This view suggests that individuals' tendencies to select certain goals or favour certain outcomes (i.e., their achievement goal orientations) create an interpretative framework for evaluating not only current but also anticipated future events. More specifically, we assumed that students' appraisals of the properties of and progress with their future educational goals vary as a function of their achievement goal orientation profiles and that these differences parallel differences in other related indices of general and school-related well-being.

Although initially two main achievement goal orientations were identified, later research has expanded the dichotomous scheme of mastery vs. performance goals by describing other goals related to achievement behaviour. Based on the observation that not all students in the classroom strive for competence, Nicholls, Patashnick, and Nolen (1985) introduced work avoidance goals. Students pursuing a work avoidance goal aim at effort reduction by avoiding challenging tasks, putting forth as little effort as possible and trying to get away with it. Elliot and Harackiewicz (1996; see also Middleton & Midgley, 1997) argued that the nature and function of performance goals would be more accurately understood if they were partitioned into separate approach and avoidance components. This distinction maintained that the adoption of performance-approach goals (i.e., the aim of demonstrating competence) and performance-avoidance goals (i.e., the aim of avoiding judgments of incompetence) would have different correlates and behavioural consequences.

The more recent and so far less studied advancements have focused on the different nuances of mastery and performance (Elliot and McGregor, 2001, Pintrich, 2000a). Suggesting that not all students who aim at mastery use identical criteria for the attainment of mastery, Niemivirta (2002b) distinguished between mastery-intrinsic and mastery-extrinsic goal orientations. That is, despite the same general goal (to gain competence), some students use intrinsic criteria (e.g., the phenomenological feeling of knowing and understanding) for evaluating whether they have achieved mastery or not, whereas some others lean on extrinsic criteria (e.g., grades and formal feedback). This, in turn, leads to different foci in what the students seek to attain. Similar differentiation was also put forward by Grant and Dweck (2003), although they labelled the latter goal as outcome goal. The initial findings regarding mastery-extrinsic or outcome goals suggest that they not only relate to mastery-focused tendencies (e.g., active coping and effort expenditure) but also to performance-related concerns (e.g., fear of failure and rumination).

Regarding the relationships between goals and achievement behaviour, research provides both consistent and inconsistent results. In general, current findings suggest that the endorsement of mastery goals is associated with positive and adaptive patterns of coping and behaviour. For example, studies have systematically shown positive relationships between mastery goals and interest, depth of information processing, effort and persistence, use of effective learning strategies, self-efficacy, and positive emotions (Harackiewicz et al., 2000, McGregor and Elliot, 2002, Niemivirta, 2002b, Nolen, 1988, Pajares et al., 2000, Pekrun et al., 2006). Also the relationships between performance-avoidance and avoidance goals and indices of achievement, motivation, and affect have shown to be rather systematic. Performance-avoidance goals have been found to be linked with negative outcomes and indices of maladaptive adjustment, such as anxiety, hopelessness, superficial and disorganized study strategies, lower performance, self-concept and self-efficacy, and self-handicapping (McGregor and Elliot, 2002, Niemivirta, 2002b, Pekrun et al., 2006, Urdan, 2004), whereas avoidance goals have been found to be associated with lower performance, interest, and enjoyment, low or superficial strategy use, alienation and cynical attitudes toward school, negative affects, and external attributional patterns (Harackiewicz et al., 2000, Nicholls et al., 1985, Niemivirta, 1998, Nolen, 1988, Seifert, 2004). The relations between performance-approach goals and other outcomes are less clear. Some studies have evidenced negative effects (McGregor and Elliot, 2002, Niemivirta, 2002b), whereas others have shown positive effects (Elliot and Harackiewicz, 1996, Harackiewicz et al., 2000, Middleton and Midgley, 1997). In essence, the various findings suggest that performance-approach goals may have a positive effect on effort, persistence, and graded performance or achievement, but the pursuit of such goals may also be associated with anxiety, surface processing, and stress. According to Midgley, Kaplan, and Middleton (2001), these discrepancies may partially be explained by variation in age, sampling, and design.

Much of the research on achievement goals has focused on how specific goals are related to specific outcomes. Less attention has been paid to the possibility that people may strive for multiple goals or seek to attain a single outcome for multiple reasons, or, that the pursuit of certain goals may serve multiple functions (Malka and Covington, 2005, Niemivirta, 2002b, Pintrich, 2000a). For example, people may seek to get good grades both because a good grade serves as a standard for mastery and because it is of important instrumental value as such. In line with this, we maintain that all students identify and share similar goals, but the relative emphasis on one or more of them is what makes the difference. Thus, instead of looking at the bivariate relationships between sets of variables, our study focused on the patterns of goal orientations and their relations to subjective well-being. We believe that students' generalized motivational tendencies are best captured by classifying students into homogenous groups with similar goal orientation profiles (see Niemivirta, 2002a), and that such an approach is useful in revealing the complex associations between motivational strivings and indices of well-being.

The indices of well-being included in the study reflect both general well-being and well-being linked to a specific context. Thus, in addition to common indices of positive and negative aspects of subjective general well-being (self-esteem and depressive symptoms), we also focused on domain-specific indicators of it directly associated with school and education, such as school-related burnout, which, to our knowledge, has never been studied in relation to achievement goals, and personal goal appraisals.

The maintenance of positive self-esteem is seen as a powerful motive guiding perception and behaviour (Dunning, 2001). While trying to attain something of personal importance, we continuously compare our progress to a goal or a standard, and the outcome of that comparison results in self-related affective reactions. In this process, the extant level of self-esteem may serve as an input in the sense that it influences what sort of events we consider to be motivationally congruent or incongruent (threatening) in the first place. Then again, self-esteem may also serve as an outcome in the sense that the perceived success of our self-regulatory efforts (whether self- or task-focused) is an important determinant of how we feel about ourselves in given situations (e.g., fluctuations in self-esteem; Kernis & Waschull, 1995). According to prior research, self-protection is more common among people with low self-esteem, whereas self-enhancement is more typical of people with high self-esteem.

In the academic domain, self-esteem can be seen as a buffer against the negative influence of study-related setbacks and disappointments. Depressive symptoms, instead, may be taken to reflect the psychological consequences of prolonged failures to meet one's own standards or perceived expectations (Dykman, 1998, Sideridis, 2005). In the school context, the pursuit of study-related goals and educational aspirations provide both meaning and direction to the students, and if these goals are not met, the student may begin to feel inadequate and inapt as a person. As we assume that differences in students' achievement goal orientations partly reflect differences in the students' experienced need to protect their self-esteem, we expected to find differences in self-esteem as a function of students' motivational profiles. Moreover, since students with different achievement goal orientations also differ in terms of how they experience setbacks and how concerned they are about failures and the consequences of those failures (Boekaerts & Niemivirta, 2000), we expected to find parallel differences in depressive symptomatology.

Burnout is generally regarded as a work-related disorder, but it may be considered relevant in the school context as well (Kiuru, Aunola, Nurmi, Leskinen, & Salmela-Aro, in press). After all, school is a context in which the students work; they attend classes and complete assignments in order to pass exams and to acquire a degree. As in the work context, high perceived demands and lack of perceived resources form the breeding ground for burnout (cf. Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001). Accordingly, school-related burnout is defined as consisting of three conceptually distinct but empirically related dimensions: emotional exhaustion due to school demands, cynical and detached attitude towards school, and feelings of inadequacy as a student (Salmela-Aro & Näätänen, 2005).

Several theorists have argued that people's personal goals and how those goals are appraised play an important role in the development and maintenance of individuals' subjective well-being (Little, 1983, Little et al., 2007). This view conceptualizes goals as personal projects, which constitute individualized and cognitively elaborated representations of what a person wants to achieve in his or her current life situation (Little, 1983). Personal goals are typically examined by asking individuals to generate a list of goals and to rate each goal according to appraisal dimensions, such as importance, progress, stress, accomplishment, and attainability (Little, 1983). These nomothetic dimensions that link goals to subjective well-being permit comparisons across persons even though they possess idiographic sets of personal goals. Personal goals that are appraised as stressful and difficult to achieve have been found to be associated with depressive symptoms (Salmela-Aro & Nurmi, 1996). Similarly, being highly committed to many work-related goals has been found to correlate with work burnout (Salmela-Aro & Nurmi, 2004). As our core assumption was that the personal relevance or importance of any current or future event is evaluated in relation to one's goals and perceived resources (Boekaerts & Niemivirta, 2000), we expected to find differences in students' goal appraisals that varied as a function of the valence (approach vs. avoidance) and foci (validating vs. gaining competence) of the students' motivational tendencies.

Based on prior work (Niemivirta, 1998, Niemivirta, 2002b, Roeser et al., 2002, Tuominen et al., 2004), we expected to find several groups of students with different motivational profiles. In line with the literature, we anticipated groups with a dominant tendency towards mastery, performance, and avoidance. We further expected that students emphasizing goals and outcomes related to performance and achievement would fall into two or more groups, some with a focus on success or relative ability (approach), and some with a focus on self-protection (avoidance). Consequently, we expected to reveal several motivational profiles, each with an emphasis on either a single goal orientation or a combination of goal orientations (Hypothesis 1).

As to the overall differences in well-being, we mainly draw on the results from Dykman, 1998, Roeser et al., 2002, and Sideridis (2005). Differences in the experienced need to self-protect – as reflected in different types of goal orientation profiles – were presumed to be associated with differences in subjective well-being. In line with Dykman's work, we hypothesized that students with a concern of validating their competence (i.e., performance-focused students) would show less adaptive patterns of subjective well-being than their growth-seeking peers (i.e., mastery-oriented students). However, following Sideridis (2005), we expected that the negative outcomes would be more accentuated among students emphasizing performance-avoidance tendencies. More specifically, we expected that students with an emphasis on mastery or performance (either success or relative ability) would show equal levels of self-esteem and depressive symptoms, but because performance-focused students' self-worth is contingent on their achievements (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001), they would be more likely to report emotional exhaustion and stress with respect to their educational goals (Hypothesis 2). Furthermore, as students with performance-avoidance-focused motivational strivings appear to be most concerned about failure, and their self-worth is likely to be contingent on their academic success (Boekaerts and Niemivirta, 2000, Elliot and Church, 1997), we expected that they would report lower self-esteem and higher levels of depressive symptoms compared to the others (cf. Sideridis, 2005) (Hypothesis 3).

Finally, we anticipated that avoidance-oriented students would display highest levels of cynicism and lack of effort and commitment to their educational goals (Hypothesis 4). However, since general (work) avoidance tendencies may also be likely among students who are either alienated from school, lack interest, or simply do not value school-related achievement and academic competence (see Roeser et al., 2002, Seifert, 2004), we acknowledged the possibility that some of these students might in fact exhibit less general distress and stress with their future aspirations than their more committed peers (Hypothesis 5).