Examining Hong Kong students’ achievement goals and their relations with students’ perceived classroom environment and strategy use

Abstract

This study examined Hong Kong students’ achievement goals and their relations with students’ perceived classroom environment and strategy use based on the multiple goal perspective of goal orientation theory. A total of 925 Grade 8 students from six secondary schools in Hong Kong voluntarily responded to a questionnaire that measured these three sets of variables. Consistent with previous studies using goal orientation theory, the findings of this study indicated that students’ perceived classroom environment was significantly related to their personal achievement goals and strategy use. While mastery goals were found to be the strongest predictor of strategy use, performance‐approach goals and perceived instrumentality also had positive relations with mastery goals and strategy use. Our findings suggest that mastery goals and performance goals were not contrasting goals as conceptualised in normative goal orientation theory. Students with high motivation for both types of goal were more adaptive in learning than were students who pursued a single type of goal. Moreover, the value of adding perceived instrumentality when studying students’ motivation should be emphasised. The implications of these findings for understanding Hong Kong students’ motivation, and for planning effective teaching instruction to enhance their motivation, are discussed.

Keywords:

• achievement goal
• strategy use
• classroom environment
• Hong Kong students

Notes

1. Under the secondary school place allocation system in Hong Kong, all secondary schools can be generally categorised as Band 1 schools (which mainly admit the highest 33.3% of students), Band 2 schools (which mainly admit the middle 33.3% of students), or Band 3 schools (which mainly admit the lowest 33.3% of students).