Testing Structural Invariance of the Achievement Goal Questionnaire in American, Chinese, and Dutch College Students

Abstract

In the last two decades, achievement goals have played a prominent role in the achievement motivation literature (Elliot & McGregor, 2001; Van Yperen, 2006). Goals have been conceptualized as individuals' cognitive representations of competence-based outcomes that emerge when they approach, experience, and respond to achievement situations in a variety of contexts such as the classroom, the work place, and the sports field (Cury, Elliot, Da Fonséca, & Moller, 2006). The theoretical underpinnings and operationalization of achievement goals have followed a long history. Conceptually, the constructs have developed from a focus on one dimension of competence (i.e., mastery vs. performance; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) to the inclusion of a second dimension related to the valence of these competence cognitions (i.e., approach vs. avoidance; Elliot & Harakiewicz, 1996). Likewise, the hypothesized structure of achievement goals has evolved from a dichotomous form of performance versus mastery (Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Nicholls, 1984), through a trichotomous framework of performance approach, performance avoidance, and mastery goals (Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996), to the most recent 2 × 2 framework of performance approach, performance avoidance, mastery approach, and mastery avoidance (Conroy, Elliot, & Hofer, 2003; Elliot & McGregor, 2001). From a classroom perspective, students with mastery goals are mostly concerned with doing well in 449350M ECXXX10.

Achievement goals in adult learners: Evidence from distance education

“…In short, the AGQ appears to be as psychometrically sound in British adult learners as it is in traditional‐age US college students. Recent evidence obtained by Sun and Hernandez () has shown factor invariance for the AGQ across Dutch, Chinese, and American students, and our data add to that corpus of evidence (see also Campbell, Barry, Joe & Finney, ; Murayama, Zhou & Nesbit, ).…”

Achievement Goals, Fear of Failure and Self-Handicapping in Young Elite Athletes with and without Chronic Pain

“…We do not have an explanation for this finding, except for the questionable internal consistency of the NDV subscale assessing performance–avoidance goal orientation. Nevertheless, the internal consistency of the P–Av subscale was comparable with that in previous Dutch samples [ 35 , 59 ]. In addition, the internal consistency of the Self-Handicapping Scale (SHS) was questionable.…”

A Cross-Cultural Examination of University Students’ Motivation Toward Band and Academics in Singapore and the United States

“…An additional issue to contend with is that Asians are generally less likely to use extreme scores in Likert-type scales (Chen, Lee, & Stevenson, 1995). Future studies may explore these issues in depth (Sun & Hernandez, 2012) and use qualitative approaches to more richly uncover cross-cultural differences in achievement goal theory (King & McInerney, 2014). It is also important to clarify that like so many psychological and social-psychological studies, the sample for this study consists of volunteers, and as such the findings may include response biases.…”

“…A number of studies have investigated the use of the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework in non-Western sports and academic contexts (e.g., Sun & Hernandez, 2012; Xiang, Lee, & Shen, 2001). In particular, researchers have sought to determine how achievement goals differ between individualistic Western societies and their collectivistic Asian counterparts (Murayama et al, 2009; Urdan, 2004).…”

“…Despite differences in how achievement goals operate across cultures, several studies have validated the 2 × 2 model in non-Western cultural settings (Liu et al, 2009; Murayama et al, 2009; Poondej & Lerdpornkulrat, 2016; Sun & Hernandez, 2012; Wang et al, 2007, 2008), suggesting that the underlying four-factor structure of achievement goals may be universal. In the only known cross-cultural study on achievement goals in the context of instrumental music, Miksza and colleagues (2016) found that the 2 × 2 achievement goal model offered the best relative fit to their data compared with alternative dichotomous and trichotomous models.…”