Social Achievement Goals Profiles: Prosocial Goals and Academic Motivation

• In Event: Motivation and Cognition in Learning and Instruction

Abstract

Prior research aligned separate social achievement goals with prosocial goals and academic motivation. Still, social goal profiles that naturally derive from the coexistence of multiple social achievement goals have not been under investigation. The present work aimed to map out social achievement goal profiles using a phenomenological approach with prosocial goals and academic achievement goals. Participants comprised 265 high school students. Results yielded four unique social goal profiles: students with high development and higher avoid goals, students scoring high across all goals, students with low approach and avoid goals, and students having higher avoid goals. The most popular profile had high social development and avoid goals, which aligned with higher prosocial and mastery-approach goals.

Authors

• Martin H. Jones, University of New Mexico

• Gulay Guler, The University of New Mexico