The Effects of Achievement Goal Orientation and English Language Usage on Student Standardized Test Performance

Students take standardized tests and in most cases, the results have implications not only to the students, but also teachers and administrators. The students' motivation to perform may be a factor, especially in the infrequent situations when there aren't consequences to the students, only the administration. The tests in the middle school years for the MCAS in Massachusetts have virtually no student consequences. The student's Achievement Goal Orientation, a measure of intrinsic/extrinsic motivation may affect test results. Language usage other than English may also be a factor, even when English was the students' first language. There may be interactions between goal orientation and language usage. Using ANOVA and Pearson Correlation, the relationship between MCAS test results and goal orientation, language usage and the interactions between goal orientation and language usage were examined for an eighth grade class in single middle school in Southeastern Massachusetts with a high percentage of students from an uncommon ethnic and language background. The results showed that students with a Mastery orientation as determined by a modified PALS survey had higher scores, those with a Performance-Avoidance orientation has lower scores while the Performance-Approach orientation showed no significant differences. Students with language usage other than English had only slightly lower test scores. There were no significant interactions between goal orientation and language usage. The results for Mastery and Performance-Avoidance were consistent with similar research. The lack of significance for Performance-Approach suggests the MCAS may not have been a sufficient goal to motivate students to perform their best.