Implications of Cost and Gender: Does Cost Mediate Relations Between Goal Orientations and Outcomes?

• In Event: International Perspectives of Achievement Goals

Abstract

Several studies have shown that achievement goal orientations (AGOs) and cost perceptions differentially predict adaptive versus maladaptive academic outcomes. Our work expands previous literature by further examining these relations within college students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM), specifically physics. Associations between students’ AGOs and cost perceptions were explored among introductory physics students at a large midwestern university (N=877). For females, loss of valued alternatives and emotional cost mediated relations between performance-avoidance (PAV) goals and persistence, and emotional cost mediated the path from PAV goals to course grades. These findings provide initial support for the notion that the combination of PAV goals and high-cost perceptions may be particularly problematic for females in college STEM courses.

Authors

• Elise C. Allen, The Ohio State University - Columbus

• Arianna Black, The Ohio State University

• Andrew Perry, The Ohio State University - Columbus

• Shirley L. Yu, The Ohio State University