Antecedents and trajectories of achievement goals: a self-determination theory perspective.

BACKGROUND: Research has shown that both achievement goal theory and self-determination theory (SDT) are quite useful in explaining student motivation and success in academic contexts. However, little is known about how the two theories relate to each other. AIM: The current research used SDT as a framework to understand why students enter classes with particular achievement goal profiles, and also, how those profiles may change over time. SAMPLE: One hundred and eighty-four undergraduate preservice teachers in a required domain course agreed to participate in the study. METHOD: Data were collected at three time points during the semester, and both path modelling and multi-level longitudinal modelling techniques were used. RESULTS: Path modelling techniques with 169 students, results indicated that students' autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction in life predict their initial self-determined class motivation, which in turn predicts initial mastery-approach and -avoidance goals. Multi-level longitudinal modelling with 108 students found that perceived teacher autonomy support buffered against the general decline in students' mastery-approach goals over the course of the semester. CONCLUSIONS: Data provide a promising integration of SDT and achievement goal theory, posing a host of potentially fruitful future research questions regarding goal adoption and trajectories.

A versus F: the effects of implicit letter priming on cognitive performance.

BACKGROUND: It has been proposed that motivational responses outside people's conscious awareness can be primed to affect academic performance. The current research focused on the relationship between primed evaluative letters (A and F), explicit and implicit achievement motivation, and cognitive performance. AIM: Given the evaluative connotation associated with letter grades, we wanted to know if exposure to the letter A before a task could improve performance, and exposure to the letter F could impair performance. If such effects are found, we suspected that they may be rooted in implicit approach versus avoidance motivation, and occur without participants' awareness. SAMPLE: The current research was conducted at a large research university in the USA. Twenty-three undergraduates participated in Expt 1, 32 graduate students in Expt 2, and 76 undergraduates in Expt 3. METHOD: Expts 1 and 2 were conducted in classroom settings, and Expt 3 in a laboratory. In Expt 1, participants were randomly assigned to either the A or F condition. The letter manipulation came in the form of an ostensible Test Bank ID code on the cover of an analogy test, which participants were prompted to view and write on each page of their test. Expt 2 followed a similar procedure but included the neutral letter J as a third condition to serve as a control. In Expt 3, participants' letter condition was presented in the form of an ostensible Subject ID code prior to an anagram test. RESULTS: Expts 1-3 demonstrated that exposure to the letter A enhances performance relative to the exposure to the letter F, whereas exposure to the letter F prior to an achievement task can impair performance. This effect was demonstrated using two different types of samples (undergraduate and graduate students), in two different experimental settings (classroom and laboratory), using two different types of achievement tasks (analogy and anagram), and using two different types of letter presentation (Test Bank ID and Subject ID). Results from the funnelled debriefing, self-report goals, and word-stem completion support our position that the effect of letter on academic performance takes place outside the conscious awareness of participants. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that students are vulnerable to evaluative letters presented before a task, and support years of research highlighting the significant role that nonconscious processes play in achievement settings.

Gender differences in academic entitlement among college students.

Researchers have labeled today's college students as perceiving themselves to be more entitled than ever before (J. M. Twenge, 2006). The results of the present study suggest that this may be true for college men, in particular, because they report significantly more academic entitlement than women do. In Study 1, the present authors used survey data from 1229 undergraduate students across 18 classes at a large midwestern university to examine whether entitlement beliefs vary among classes. Results indicate that men reported significantly more entitlement than women did, and that this relation did not vary among classes. In Study 2, the authors used survey data from 93 undergraduate students across 10 classes, before and after they completed a semester-long course, to examine whether entitlement beliefs are fostered in the college setting. The results suggest that men perceived themselves as more entitled in the classroom than women did and that this relation did not change over time. The authors also discuss the implications for entitlement research in the academic domain.