Stability and Change in Social Goals as Related to Goal Structures and Engagement in School

ABSTRACT

The current studies explored (a) the extended external validity of social-goal-orientation framework; (b) the mediating role of social goals between classroom goal structures and students' engagement; and (c) whether changes in social goals can be explained by classroom goal structures and engagement. Study 1 was cross-sectional (N = 317), and study 2 included two time points, with a 6-month gap (N = 223), among sixth-grade students. The findings indicated that mastery goal structure was associated with social-development goals and engagement, whereas performance goal structure was associated with demonstration. Cross-lagged analysis revealed that (a) social goals are relatively stable; (b) development goals positively predicted change in emotional engagement, and (3) behavioral engagement positively predicted changes in development goals and negatively predicted changes in demonstration-avoidance goals.

KEYWORDS:

• Behavioral engagement
• cross-lagged analysis
• emotional engagement
• goal structures
• social goals

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Ms. Melissa Karakus for constructive comments made on a preliminary version of this manuscript.

Funding

A portion of the data was collected with the support of a Monash University Engagement Grant (2012) awarded to Prof. Helen Watt and Dr. Nir Madjar.

Notes

1. The school system in Israel is divided into three major streams: (a) regular public schools, with students from the secular, religious, and Arab sector; (b) independently funded schools, primarily in the religiously Orthodox sector and some in the private sector (such as democratic schools); and (c) independent, unfunded schools, representing a very small portion of the schools.

2. The current sample consisted of students who were assigned to two groups: those expected to transition at the end of sixth grade and those remaining in the same elementary school (i.e., early versus late transition). Participant selection was aimed at creating a representative sample of the sixth-grade population in Israel. A prolific line of research suggests that school transition may impact on numerous educational features, such as students' achievement, engagement, and emotional well-being (e.g., Alspaugh, 1998; Eccles & Roeser, 2011; Frenzel, Goetz, Pekrun, & Watt, 2010; Otis, Grouzet, & Pelletier, 2005; Wang & Holocomb, 2010). Hence, expectations of such a transition might impact on relationships between social goals and contextual factors in school. When controlling for gender and grades, ANCOVAs of the model's variables indicated significant differences only in perceived teacher mastery-goal emphasis (F (1,260) = 17.1, p < .001, Pη2 = .05), with early-transition students reported lower levels (M = 4.01, SD = 0.83) when compared with late-transition students (M = 4.07, SD = 0.81). Furthermore, multiple-group path analysis revealed that only one out of 15 possible paths is significantly different between early- and late-transition students. This path connected teacher emphasis on performance goals and students' emotional engagement (χ²(1) = 5.58, p < .05), with the two variables, which were negatively correlated among late-transition students (β = -.24, p < .001) and not correlated at all among early-transition students (β = .01, p = ns). School transition is an important issue per se but goes beyond the scope of the current study. I have briefly reported the results for the benefit of interested scholars. In consideration of the inconsistent and small effects, the issue was not further elaborated here.