Characteristic And Formation Machanism Of Chinese Students' Achievement Goals

Achievement goals are regarded as important determinants of academic performance and have been widely studied in the educational psychology literature, the concept, construct, and inner mechanism of which still stay controversial and hardly reach an agreement until now,thus impeding the development of the theory and relevant applications. The major disputes include whether the orientation of achievement goals for individuals is single or multiple, whether achievement goals only refer to the pursuit of academic ability or contain academic goals influenced by society as well, and whether the components of achievement goals have cultural diversities or not. Moreover, the properties and formation of goals are less researched. However, with a deeper penetration into the goal self-regulation and unconscious goals pursuit from the perspective of goal-setting theory, researchers started to pay more attention to the stability of achievement goals and goals automatic pursuit in academic context. The former is named as achievement goals self-regulation in terms of strengthened or weakened achievement goals, or even the transformation of dominant goals with the academic context changing. The latter means individual sometimes seeks goals by internalizing expectation goals driven by context cues, significant others, and social attitude. What important factors may influence the goals self-regulation and unconscious goals pursuit, as well as the formation and development of individual achievement goals? In order to improve the limitations we mentioned above, this research investigated the construct and characteristics of Chinese student achievement goals. Meanwhile, according to the research paradigm of goalsetting theory, this research looked into the formation and important factors of Chinese student achievement goals. This research mainly focuses on the following three questions.1.Is the orientation of achievement goals single or multiple? What are the internal relations between multiple components? Whether achievement goals have cultural diversities? What the major characteristics of Chinese student achievement goals?2.How are these characteristics formed?3.What are the main factors influencing the formation of Chinese student achievement goals?Three studies are included in this research:The first study dealt with the construct and attitude of Chinese student achievement goals. Qualitative research method was adopted in early work in order to clarify the nature of competence perception and achievement goals of Chinese students. Furthermore, a preliminary multi-goals construct was put forward, then on this basis a questionnaire for achievement goals was formulated, meanwhile, their psychology measurement characteristics were tested.The second study explored the formation of achievement goals using the research paradigm of the goal self-regulation and unconscious pursuit. In Study 2A, a 2?3 two factor mixed experimental design was adopted in collage classroom conduction to examine how task types and academic feedbacks impact on stability of achievement goals, task types(withinsubject factors: similar VS different tasks) and feedbacks(between-subject factors: no/positive/negative feedback). Four measurements were taken into consideration to evaluate achievement goals' regulation by testing achievement goals enhancement and dominant goals switch, including differential continuity, mean-level change, individual-level change and profile consistency. Study 2B adopted a single factor experimental design. The research paradigm of significant others priming was employed to examine the goal contagion hypothesis, which claims that individuals may automatically adopt and pursue a goal that is expected by significant others. All verified unconscious pursuit of achievement goals, and identified the most influential significant others type. The third study analyzed how parental academic involvement influence on children achievement goals, self-regulation and academic achievement with longitudinal experimental design.Main results are as follows:1.Task goals,social utility goals and social approval goals are elementary components of Chinese student achievement goals, with social goals being the major components.2.2 × 2 × 3 multi-goals construct manifests Chinese student achievement goals,which means students' orientations are multiple.3.Achievement goals can regulate itself over time and task.4. Social achievement goals occupy relatively high stability, and are considered Chinese students' dominant goals.5.Achievement goals can be automatically pursued.6.Significant others,especially students' parents have great influence on the adoption of student achievement goals.7.The type of mother-involvement has significant impact on children achievement goals.8.Parental involvement influences the perception of student achievement goals,and play an important role at the critical period of achievement goals ability formation.To sum up, the research conclusions indicate that Chinese student achievement goals are composed of task goals, social goals, social utility goals and social approval goals with 2 × 2 × 3 multi-goals construct, with social goals being ultimate in this construct. The characteristic of Chinese students' social goals formation is of high stability and achievement goals unconscious pursuit and that parental involvement normally impact on students' achievement goals thus further influencing academic achievement.