Antecedents and Consequences of Middle School Students’ Achievement Goals in Science

This study aimed to investigate the antecedents and consequences of achievement goals by proposing a path model. While self-efficacy, task value, fear of failure, perceived parents’, and teachers’ achievement goals were investigated as antecedents of achievement goals in science, students’ metacognition and coping strategies were examined as consequences of achievement goals in science. A total of 977 Turkish middle school students participated in the study. According to the results, students’ higher levels of task value, perceived parents’ mastery goals, and perceived teachers’ mastery goals were positively related to mastery approach goals. Additionally, students’ higher levels of perceived parents’ mastery goals, fear of shame and embarrassment, fear of devaluing one’s self-estimate were positively related to mastery avoidance goals. Concerning to performance goals, the model suggest that higher levels of self-efficacy and perceived parents’ performance goals were positively related to performance approach goals. Furthermore, students’ higher level of task value, perceived parents’ performance goals and fear of upsetting important others were positively related to performance avoidance goals. The path model also suggested that students who adopt mastery approach goals tend to use more adaptive coping strategies, and less maladaptive coping strategies. Besides, students who adopt mastery avoidance goals tend to use maladaptive coping strategies when they face an academic failure in science. Moreover, students’ performance approach goals are related to both adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies. Lastly students’ performance avoidance goals positively associated to metacognition.