The work avoidance goal construct: Examining its structure, antecedents, and consequences

The relationship between university students' goal orientation and academic achievement. The mediating role of motivational components and the moderating role of achievement emotions

The present study aims to expand the understanding of the role played by achievement emotions in the learning process and academic achievement of university students. We investigated how achievement emotions moderate the direct and indirect associations between mastery and performance goal orientation and academic achievement. Also, we used as mediators the motivational components from Pintrich and De Groot's theoretical framework of motivation and learning strategies. 274 Romanian university students (Mage = 20.23, 84.7% women) participated in the study. Moderated mediation analyses indicated that self-efficacy was the only significant mediator, and this relationship was moderated by hope, pride and hopelessness. In addition, the links between mastery and performance approach goals and motivational components are stronger when the positive emotions are higher and the negative ones are lower. Mastery avoidance goals were linked with high scores of motivational components at higher levels of negative and lower levels of positive achievement emotions, whereas the association of avoidance goals with motivational components was moderated by two positive emotions (pride and enjoyment). The patterns derived from the moderating role of achievement emotions in the relationships between goal orientation, motivational components and academic achievement, alongside several inconsistent results and implications in theory and education, are discussed.

Merits and limitations of latent profile approaches to teachers' achievement goals: A multi-study analysis

Research on teacher goals has primarily followed a variable-centered approach, although person-centered approaches have inspired achievement goal research in other domains. The multiple goal perspective posits that individuals pursue different combinations of goals-goal profiles-that might be differentially adaptive or maladaptive. We investigate how beneficial goal profiles may be for research on teacher motivation, using data from three study sets (total N = 3,681) from different countries (Israel, Germany) and institution types (schools, universities). We analyzed whether psychologically meaningful, coherent, and generalizable goal profiles could be identified and compared the explanatory power of profiles and individual goals as predictors of teachers' self-efficacy and work-related distress. Results showed six psychologically meaningful and largely generalizable goal profiles. Compared to individual goals, profiles only explained little differences in self-efficacy and work-related distress. Given these findings, we critically evaluate achievement goal profiles as a means to study effects of teacher goals.

Culture, Motivation, Self-Regulation, and the Impactful Work of Dennis M. McInerney

This tribute celebrates the distinguished scholarship and extraordinary life of Dennis Michael McInerney, who passed away in Hong Kong on May 20th, 2022. It is a testimony of his impact on our professional and personal lives while highlighting the multitude and depth of his scholarly contributions. McInerney was one of those thinkers who invited us to reconsider how we conceptualize, assess, and apply scientific investigations in our teaching and learning practices. He authored and co-authored numerous widely used books and published numerous research articles in peer-refereed journals. During his remarkable career, McInerney dedicated a significant part to researching the problems associated with studying culture and uncovering how culture is a missing link in most motivation research. He believed there was a noteworthy need to conduct Indigenous educational research to understand the extent to which mainstream motivation theories apply to culturally diverse groups and stand up to cross-cultural testing scrutiny. McInerney's influence and impact will transcend future generations of research, given the gravity of his scholarly contributions.

The correlation of honesty-humility and learning goals with academic cheating

Academic cheating is a problem that affects many educational institutions and has become increasingly significant with the new challenges of online education. Recent studies have found that learning goals are correlated with cheating behavior among students. In this study, we investigated whether learning goals are still a predictor of cheating behavior when controlling for students' Honesty-Humility (emanated from the HEXACO model of personality) within a sample of 311 German university students. Regrading students' learning goals, we assessed their learning approach, performance approach, performance avoidance, and work avoidance. The result shows an intermediate negative and highly significant association between Honesty-Humility and academic cheating. Learning goals did not explain any incremental variance in academic cheating that goes beyond the Honesty-Humility factor. As the only exception, the work avoidance goal was found to also predict cheating behavior, but this positive association seems to be not as strong as the negative correlation between Honesty-Humility and academic cheating. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these results and make recommendations for future research.

Influence of Teacher and Family Support on University Student Motivation and Engagement

Although many studies endorse the notion that the way students perceive support influences their engagement, very few have explored the possible mediator role of intention to learn between these variables. The present work provides new evidence to the existing literature because it analyses the work of intention to learn (measured with expectancy-value beliefs and achievement goals) as a mediating motivational variable in the relation between university students' external support (teacher and family) and their engagement. The Educational Situation Quality Model (MOCSE, its acronym in Spanish) has employed as a theoretical framework to perform this analysis. A sample of 267 Spanish university students completed the questionnaires employed to measure the considered variables at three times. They answered teacher and family support scales when the course began (time 1), intention to learn scales halfway through the course (time 2), and engagement scales when the course ended (time 3). The obtained structural equation models showed a positive and significant effect for teacher and family support on the considered motivational variables (expectancy-value beliefs and achievement goals) and these, in turn, on student behavioral engagement. These results allow us to point out a series of recommendations for university teachers to improve their students' involvement in their learning process.

The social contagion of work avoidance goals in school and its influence on student (dis)engagement

Work avoidance goals, which refer to wanting to do as little as possible in school, are detrimental to school success. Given its maladaptive nature, studies have investigated the antecedents of work avoidance, such as the role of personal characteristics and social-contextual factors. The influence of one’s classmates, however, remains under-explored. Drawing from social contagion research, we examined whether work avoidance goals spread among classmates. Questionnaires were administered to 1524 adolescent students nested within 50 classes. Two waves of data were collected one semester apart. Multilevel modeling was used to analyze the data. Results showed that a student’s work avoidance in Time 2 was predicted by his/her classmates’ work avoidance in Time 1. These results held even after controlling for one’s own Time 1 work avoidance. Moreover, work avoidance goals led to higher levels of disengagement and lower levels of engagement. The findings demonstrate that work avoidance goals are socially contagious and that they have negative consequences for students’ engagement. This study extends our theoretical understanding of work avoidance by highlighting the vital role played by one’s classmates in shaping students’ avoidance of schoolwork and the deleterious consequences that come with it.

MOCSE Centered on Students: Validation of Learning Demands and Teacher Support Scales

Based on The Educational Situation Quality Model (MOCSE, acronym in Spanish) framework, the primary objective of this study is to test the factorial validity and reliability of two MOCSE measure instruments referred to the preactional-decisional phase, specifically to learning demands and teacher supports perceived by students to overcome such demands in the classroom context. The participants were 357 Spanish undergraduate students. The data obtained by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the “Learning Demands Scale” (MOCSE-LDS) has a two-factor structure: perceived desirability and feasibility of demands. The data also revealed that the “Teacher Support Questionnaire” (MOCSE-TSQ) is composed of ten independent factors or subscales with good psychometric validity and reliability properties. Finally, the Student’s t-test generally indicated that the constructs considered in the instruments did not differ in gender terms. In short, the results obtained for the validity and reliability of the two tested instruments were good. Thus, the application of instruments MOCSE-LDS and MOCSE-TSQ is satisfactorily supported by empirical data. The resulting scales can be useful for researchers and teachers. On the one hand, this study provides researchers with two valid and reliable tools that may contribute to investigate students’ motivation in the university classroom context based on MOCSE postulates. On the other hand, the two tested instruments may provide teachers and school psychologists with important information to implement preventive or intervention actions to improve students’ intention to learn. Teachers may also use them to evaluate their own teaching and to research their own classrooms. The implications for education according to MOCSE postulates are discussed.

The influence of social achievement goals on academic engagement: a cross-sectional survey in a Namibian primary school

Achievement goal researchers have primarily focused on mastery and performance goals, while goals concerning the social reasons for wanting to achieve academically have only been minimally explored. The aim of the current study was to extend previous research, by investigating the influence of social achievement goals on different types of academic engagement. Namibian primary school students ( N = 117) answered questionnaires regarding their mastery, performance, and work avoidance achievement goals, their social achievement goals (i.e., affiliation, approval, concern, responsibility, status), and their academic engagement (i.e., behavioral, emotional, agentic). Hierarchical regression analyses, that controlled for the effects of mastery, performance, and work avoidance achievement goals, prior achievement, as well as grade-level, revealed that social achievement goals were able to account for a significant additional proportion of variance in engagement. Social status goals predicted behavioral engagement, while social concern goals predicted emotional and agentic engagement. Our findings indicate that social achievement goals are a distinct construct that can contribute to the current understanding of student motivation and academic engagement.

Exploring University Instructors' Achievement Goals and Discrete Emotions

Emerging empirical evidence indicates that discrete emotions are associated with teaching practices and professional experiences of university instructors. However, further investigations are necessary given that university instructors often face high job demands and compromised well-being. Achievement goals, which frame achievement-related thoughts and actions, have been found to describe motivational differences in university instructors and are hypothesized to be associated with their discrete emotions. Moreover, as variation exists in how university instructors respond to job demands regarding their emotional experiences, certain goals may moderate this relationship on the basis of framing different interpretations and reactions to stressors. To investigate these links, 439 instructors (46.7% female) from German and Austrian universities completed a survey assessing their achievement goals, discrete emotions (enjoyment, pride, anger, anxiety, shame, and boredom), and job demands. As hypothesized, multiple regression analyses revealed that achievement goals were differentially and meaningfully associated with discrete emotions. Specifically, learning approach goals were positively related to enjoyment and negatively related to anger and boredom, while learning avoidance goals were positively related to anger. Performance (appearance) approach goals were positively related to pride, and performance (appearance) avoidance goals were positively related to anxiety and shame. Lastly, relational goals were positively related to shame and boredom, and work avoidance goals were negatively related to enjoyment and positively related to shame and boredom. Conclusive moderation effects on the relations between job demands and emotions were not found. Future research avenues aimed at further understanding the supportive role that achievement goals can have for university instructors’ emotional experiences and well-being are discussed.

Using technology to increase student (and faculty satisfaction with) engagement in medical education

Faculty dissatisfaction with diminishing levels of student engagement in lifestyle medicine sessions prompted this exploratory project that compared differences in students' substantive engagement in medical preclinical and clinical level lifestyle medicine sessions. The preclinical and clinical level sessions had the same learning objectives and learning tasks, properly aligned with that level of student learning, but were offered in different learning formats, either traditional classroom approaches or technology-enhanced approaches. At the preclinical level, we transferred a nonmandatory, face-to-face session to a nonmandatory, fully online session. At the clinical level, we introduced two novel technology tools. We utilized Zoom technologies, which afforded students the ability to access the session from anywhere, and employed Hickey's use of "promoting" student submissions as one method for increasing student-student interaction during the synchronous session. We used indicators of behavioral engagement of Henrie et al. (Henrie CR, Halverson LR, Graham CR. Comput Educ 90: 36-53, 2015) as the framework for determining applicable engagement behaviors, including attendance, assignment completion, interactions (responding/feedback/endorsements), and the quality of (and faculty satisfaction with) the face-to-face and/or online interactions. We expected to observe higher levels of engagement behaviors in the technology-enhanced approach and found that to be the case at both the preclinical and clinical levels, in both mandatory/nonmandatory and synchronous/asynchronous formats. However, it was the increase in both the level and substance of the students' interactions in the technology-enhanced sessions that provided surprising results. A review of the sessions with enhanced engagement highlight the role of student autonomy, a construct with strongly established associations to student motivation and engagement.

The Educational Situation Quality Model: A New Tool to Explain and Improve Academic Achievement and Course Satisfaction

Students’ academic achievement is a major concern among countries. Governments spent a lot of money on education to improve students’ competences at all levels of education. Despite the enormous amount of money invested and the reforms made to curricula in many countries in recent years, these measures are not generally producing the desired results according to the data of International Performance Measurement programs for students (e.g., Program for International Student Assessment-PISA by OECD). Given the importance of this issue, this article presents an instructional-motivational model developed in the last decade to explain and improve students’ learning outcomes, e.g., academic achievement and course satisfaction, entitled the “The Educational Situation Quality Model” (MOCSE, acronym in Spanish). Unlike other educational models, MOCSE offers an integrative teaching-learning approach to explain learning outcomes. By taking the educational setting as a unit of analysis, this proposal introduces a new perspective into the existing literature to predict students’ achievement and course satisfaction by combining contributions from relevant psycho-educational theories, such as: “The Job Demands-Resources Model,” “The Expectancy-Value Theory,” and “The Achievement Goal Theory.” Besides being a conceptual framework to guide research, it also provides a methodological way to improve teacher practice and learning outcomes. In this article we first briefly explain the main model’s characteristics and functioning from the student perspective and, second, based on the MOCSE, we offer some keys for teachers to improve academic achievement and students’ course satisfaction for a specific curricular subject. Finally, future proposals and challenges are discussed. Questionnaires are provided in the Annex.

Goal Orientations and Activation of Approach Versus Avoidance Motivation While Awaiting an Achievement Situation in the Laboratory

While some students try to give their best in an achievement situation, others show disengagement and just want to get the situation over and done with. The present study investigates the role of students' tendencies for approach or avoidance motivation while anticipating tasks and the corresponding activation of the approach/avoidance motivational system as indicated by transient changes of EEG alpha asymmetry. Overall, 62 students (50 female; age: M = 23.8, SD = 3.5) completed a goal orientation questionnaire (learning goals, performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and work avoidance). They joined a laboratory experiment where EEG was recorded during resting condition as well as when students were anticipating tasks. Standard multiple regression analysis showed that higher values on performance-avoidance were related to a higher activation of the approach system whereas higher values on work avoidance were related to a higher activation of the avoidance system. Results question present assumptions about avoidance related goal orientations.

The Educational Situation Quality Model: Recent Advances

The purpose of this work was to present an educational model developed in recent years entitled the "The Educational Situation Quality Model" (MOCSE, acronym in Spanish). MOCSE can be defined as an instructional model that simultaneously considers the teaching-learning process, where motivation plays a central role. It explains the functioning of an educational setting by organizing and relating the most important variables which, according to the literature, contribute to student learning. Besides being a conceptual framework, this model also provides a methodological procedure to guide research and to promote reflection in the classroom. It allows teachers to implement effective research-action programs to improve teacher-students satisfaction and learning outcomes in the classroom context. This work explains the model's characteristics and functioning, recent advances, and how teachers can use it in an educational setting with a specific subject. This proposal integrates approaches from several relevant psycho-educational theories and introduces a new perspective into the existing literature that will allow researchers to make progress in studying educational setting functioning. The initial MOCSE configuration has been refined over time in accordance with the empirical results obtained from previous research, carried out within the MOCSE framework and with the subsequent reflections that derived from these results. Finally, the contribution of the model to improve learning outcomes and satisfaction, and its applicability in the classroom, are also discussed.

Academic Goals and Self-Handicapping Strategies in University Students

In highly competitive settings like university, the fear of failure leads some students to protect their self-worth using self-handicapping strategies. The present investigation examines to what extent academic goals are related to those tactics in university students. Specifically, MANCOVA was applied to estimate statistical differences linked to behavioral and claimed self-handicapping strategies according to the level (high/medium/low) of four types of academic goal (achievement approach, achievement avoidance, mastery approach, and work avoidance). Degree, year in school, and gender were entered as covariates. 940 students (86.5% women) from University of A Coruña (M = 20.44; SD = 1.73) participated. Results show that: (a) both behavioral and claimed self-handicapping are promoted by ego-oriented goals (achievement avoidance, F(2, 937) = 23.56, p < .001, η p 2 = .048; achievement approach, F(2, 937) = 7.49, p < .001, η p 2 = .016); (b) work avoidance goals are related to behavioral self-handicapping (F(2, 937) = 9.09, p < .001, η p 2 = .019), but are not statistically linked to claimed self-handicapping; and (c) mastery approach goals are significantly, negatively related to both types of self-handicapping (F(2, 937) = 20.09, p < .001, η p 2 = .041). Psychological and educational implications of the findings are discussed.

Cultural differences in the understanding of modelling and feedback as sources of self-efficacy information

BACKGROUND

The potential role of culture in the development and operation of self-efficacy has been acknowledged by researchers. Clearer understanding of this cultural impact will benefit from research that shows how the same efficacy information is evaluated across cultures.

AIMS

We tested whether two sources of self-efficacy information delivered by multiple social agents (i.e., vicarious experience and social persuasion) were weighed differently by adolescents in different cultures.

SAMPLE

Of 2,893 middle school students in Korea (n = 416), the Philippines (n = 522), and the United States (n = 1,955) who completed the survey, 400 students were randomly pooled from each country.

METHODS

Invariance of the measurement and of the latent means for self-efficacy and self-efficacy sources across the groups was tested by multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Predictive utility of the self-efficacy sources was compared by multigroup structural equation modelling.

RESULTS

Compared to the students in the two collectivistic countries, the US students reported significantly higher mathematics self-efficacy. Whereas the efficacy beliefs of the Korean and the US students were predicted equally well by the vicarious experience from their teachers and the social persuasion by their family and peers, those of the Filipino adolescents were best predicted by the social persuasion from their peers.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provided empirical evidence that socially conveyed sources of self-efficacy information are construed and evaluated differently across cultures, depending on who delivered the efficacy-relevant information.