The Mediating Role of Mindfulness in the Relationship between Self-Regulated Learning and Goal Orientation with Academic Identity

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Academic identity is the most important factor in student performance and motivation for student development that can influence classroom behavior; desire to go to school, and one's perception of themselves. If a person has a good idea of himself, he will try to be successful. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of mindfulness in the relationship between self-regulated learning and goal orientation with educational identity. Method: The design of the present study is the correlation with the structural modeling method. The statistical population of this study consisted of all high school students in Nehbandan city in the academic year of 2015-2016. 216 students were selected by multistage cluster sampling as a sample. For data collection, the academic identity questionnaire (Weas & Isaacson, 2008); goal orientation (Midgley et al., 1998), self-regulated learning strategies (Pentrich & De Groot, 1990) and mindfulness questionnaires (Bauer et al., 2010) were used. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling were used to investigate the research hypothesis. Data were analyzed using SPSS and LISREL software. Results: The results showed that according to the presented indices, the mediating role of mindfulness in the relationship between self-regulated learning and goal orientation with academic identity is confirmed; In other words, self-regulated learning and goal orientation with mediating mindfulness have a positive and significant indirect effect on academic identity. Also, the direct effects of mindfulness, self-regulation learning, and goal orientation on academic identity were 0.50, 0.68 and 0.12, respectively; the direct effect of self-regulation learning and goal orientation on mindfulness, respectively, 0.54 and 0.12, respectively; and the effect of total self-regulated learning and goal orientation on academic identity with mediating mindfulness was 0.95 and 0.18, respectively. Conclusion: Given the importance of goal orientation and academic motivation for long-term learning success and generalization, attention to metacognitive strategies, planning, review, and mental adjustment should be incorporated into curriculum so that the learning process is gradually adapted with learner characteristics and needs.