Adolescents' Identity Formation Styles and Achievement Goals: A Person-Centered Approach

• In Event: The Interplay of Motivation and Identity: Perspectives on How It Matters for Students and Teachers

Abstract

Adolescents’ achievement goals and identity formation styles have common theoretical assumptions and practical implications centered around promoting adaptive student learning processes (Kaplan & Flum, 2010). These include: informative identity (i.e., learning about self by gathering information), sharing characteristics with mastery goals by focusing on learning/competence development; normative identity (i.e., readily accepting significant-others’ norms), sharing characteristics with performance goals emphasizing validating self-worth by conforming to normative standards; and avoidant identity (i.e., postponing identity commitments whenever possible), sharing conceptual overlap with avoidance goals. Despite this alignment, and the importance of both constructs for wellbeing and academic engagement (e.g., Kaplan & Flum, 2010), their relationship has been little examined.
Regarding achievement goals, not only personal goals matter but also perceptions of teacher goals (e.g., Urdan, 2010) and peer goals (e.g., Hemi et al., 2023). We propose that identity could serve as a filter for perceiving others’ goals (e.g., a student with a predominantly normative identity might be especially attentive to others’ emphases on performance). Likewise, others’ goals could create a motivational climate encouraging different identity styles. Thus, the relationship between identity styles and achievement goals not only pertains to personal goals, but likely also extents to goal perceptions (and their relationship with personal goals). To illuminate these linkages, we aimed at investigating how different identity profiles relate to different student achievement goals as well as perceptions of teacher and peer goals.
High school students (N = 527, 52% female) completed established questionnaires on their identity formation styles (Berzonsky et al., 2013), achievement goals (AGQ-R; Elliot & Murayama, 2008), and perceived teacher (Midgley at al., 2000) and peer goals (Hemi et al., 2023). We conducted latent profile analyses, and used the BCH method to investigate associations between identity profiles and achievement goals and perceived others’ goals (Asparouhov & Muthén, 2014).
Results supported a six-class solution (Table 1). Besides profiles 6 (9%), 5 (36%) and 1 (2%) that were characterized primarily by mean level differences, we found low levels of informative style in profile 2 (29%), whereas profile 3 (18%) had high levels of informative style and profile 4 (5%) had high levels of both informative and avoidant styles (Figure 1).
Next, we examined whether students with different identity profiles also reported different goals (Table 2 and Figures 2-3). Students in the informative profile reported higher levels of mastery approach goals and perceived more mastery than performance emphases by others. Conversely, students in the informative and avoidant profile perceived more emphases on performance than on mastery by others. Students in the low informative profile perceived more teacher emphases on performance than students in the informative profile. Additionally, we found indications for different patterns of associations between personal and perceived goals across profiles that will be explored further.
These results confirm associations between identity profiles and personal achievement and perceived goals. Identity complexes emerge as a promising direction to understanding how several identity styles operate together and which types encourage or hinder academic motivation. This in turn can also provide a relevant foundation of practical interventions.

Authors

• Alla Hemi, University of Haifa

• Yisrael Rich, Bar Ilan University

• Nir Madjar, Bar-Ilan University

• Martin Daumiller, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich