Testing for the multiple goal effects: The role of social-oriented achievement motivation

Assuming the Western perspective of multiple achievement goals (Harackiewicz, Pintrich, Elliot & Trash, 2002), two quantitative studies aim to provide empirical evidence that Filipino students who endorse multiple goals would have the most adaptive pattern of learning-related outcomes. In Study 1, cluster analysis was performed to identify students who endorse different goal combinations, from a sample of 900 (605 females, 209 males,) freshmen enrolled in College Algebra. Series of analysis of variance (ANOVA\u27s) show that the most adaptive pattern of outcomes (in terms of intrinsic motivation, effort, deep strategies, enjoyment of learning and lowest anxiety) was associated with the multiple goals cluster (n=301), while the low motivation cluster (n=135) had the least adaptive pattern. The mastery (n=191) and performance (n=273) clusters had equivalent patterns of outcomes, but the multiple goal was better than the performance cluster except for final grades, and was also better than the mastery cluster in terms of intrinsic motivation, deep strategies and enjoyment of learning. Study 2 further examines multiple goals by integrating social-oriented achievement motivation (Yu & Yang, 1994). It looks at the relationship between SOAM and multiple goals and determines whether SOAM moderates the advantage of multiple goals documented in Study 1. From a sample of 1442 college freshmen (971 females, 471 males), results show that SOAM is positively related with both mastery and performance goals is also related with all the outcomes measures except academic achievement and is more pronounced among students with multiple goals. Using cluster analysis, the study xiii identified the following important groups: 1) performance/High SOAM , n =272 2) mastery/Low SOAM, n= 47 3) mastery/High SOAM, n =193 4) multiple goals/Low SOAM , n= 166 and 5) multiple goals/High SOAM, n = 383. Analysis of variance reveals that the multiple goals/High SOAM, but not the multiple/Low SOAM reported significantly higher intrinsic motivation, use of deep strategies and enjoyment of learning than the mastery and performance group. Thus, SOAM does not only explain the consistent positive relationship between mastery and performance goals apparent among Asian societies like Filipinos, but also helps explain the specific advantage of multiple goals over a single dominant goal pursuit in some important outcome variables