Examining the role of social goals in school: A study in two collectivist cultures
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Examining the role of social goals in school: A study in two collectivist cultures Ronnel B. King & Dennis M. McInerney & David A. Watkins
Received: 13 July 2012 / Revised: 7 January 2013 / Accepted: 27 January 2013 / Published online: 19 February 2013 # Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisboa, Portugal and Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Achievement goal theorists have mostly focused on the role of mastery and performance goals in the school setting with little attention being paid to social goals. The aim of this study was to explore the role of social goals in influencing educational outcomes in two collectivist cultures: Hong Kong and the Philippines. Results showed that social goals were able to predict additional variance in various adaptive educational outcomes even after controlling for the effects of mastery and performance goals. Implications for cross-cultural research are discussed. Keywords Social goals . Achievement goals . Motivation in cross-cultural settings
Introduction The goal construct has become a focal variable in psychological research (Austin and Vancouver 1996; Elliot 2008). Goals have been conceptualized as catalysts that direct energy for the realization of desired outcomes (Heckhausen 1991). The pursuit of qualitatively different goals provides an interpretive framework that results in different patterns of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive responses (Elliot 2008). R. B. King (*) Learning Sciences Laboratory, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore e-mail: [email protected] D. M. McInerney Department of Special Education and Counseling, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong D. M. McInerney e-mail: [email protected] D. A. Watkins Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia e-mail: [email protected]
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Goals have dominated current theorizing on academic motivation through the prominence of achievement goal theory (Hulleman et al. 2010). Achievement goal research mostly focuses on the impact of mastery and performance goals on various educational outcomes (Elliot 2005). However, an exclusive focus on mastery and performance goals seems overly restrictive. Social goals, which emphasize relational and affiliative concerns, have been largely neglected in the literature (see King and McInerney 2012; King and Watkins 2012b; Urdan and Maehr 1995 for reviews). The lack of research on social goals becomes more problematic when educational psychologists want to investigate achievement motivation in collectivist settings. There is considerable evidence suggesting that social goals are especially salient in collectivist cultures where people construe themselves as tightly interwoven with their social groups (Cheng 2005; Cheng and Lam 2013; Du et al. 2012; King et al. 2012d; Markus and Kitayama 1991; Yu and Yang 1994). In this study, we utilize Personal Investment (PI) as our theoretical framework
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