It's Not Always Just About the Grade: Exploring the Achievement Goal Orientations of Pre-Med Students

Abstract

This qualitative study investigated the achievement goal orientations of a group of all male pre-med students attending a small, urban undergraduate college. Semi-structured interviews examined under what circumstances students adopted extrinsic goals, mastery goals, or a mixture of the two. Findings indicated that while nearly all students possessed an underlying or baseline extrinsic goal orientation, a sizable number of students (32%) were primarily mastery oriented and only a small percent (13%) were primarily extrinsically oriented. A large number of students did not fit either category, with many best described as being mastery oriented within certain subject areas and extrinsically oriented within others. Furthermore, this study found that social comparison (performance) goals were rarely mentioned spontaneously by students. The study concluded that the goal orientations of many students could best be described as complicated and conflicted with students experiencing a strong tension between a desire to learn and a desire to get good grades.

Keywords:

• college students
• goal theory
• motivation
• qualitative
• pre-med students
• science education

Acknowledgments

Gail Horowitz is now at the City University of New York.

Notes

1. The entire population was solicited.

2. As is typical in many United States universities, the majority of students who study natural science do not plan to continue on to careers in the natural sciences. Rather, many are pre-med or engineering students. Thus, this study of the goal orientations of pre-meds is a study of the goal orientations of science students.

3. One interviewee did not wish to have his interview recorded. Instead, written notes were taken during his interview.