Abstract

The achievement goals motivating students’ academic engagement share important associations with their academic and socioemotional functioning. However, the literature on achievement goals remains mainly cross-sectional and variable-centered, ignoring how these goals act in combination over time. This thesis provides a longitudinal person-centered examination of the relations between students’ achievement goals and their academic and socioemotional functioning at different educational stages.
In Chapter 2, we relied on Latent Profile and Latent Transition Analyses among a sample of 619 French Canadian elementary school students to estimate profiles encompassing students’ own achievement goals and their perceptions of the goals held for them by their parents and teachers. Four profiles emerged which remained stable from one school year to the next: Low on all Goals, High on all Goals, Mastery-Oriented, and Low Mastery Goals. Students were moderately to highly likely to remain in their profile over time, and all profiles reflected alignment between students’ personal goals and their perceived caregiver goals. Higher perceived competence was associated with higher mastery profiles, and students corresponding to the Mastery-Oriented profile fared best in terms of anxiety and achievement.
In Chapter 3, we relied on Growth Mixture Analyses to examine the developmental heterogeneity of burnout amongst 513 Finnish students transitioning from upper secondary to post secondary school. Four trajectory profiles emerged: High and Decreasing, Moderate and Decreasing, Low and Increasing, and Low and Stable. High initial levels of global self-esteem and mastery-extrinsic goals were associated with the Low and Stable profile, whereas high performance goals were associated with the High and Decreasing profile. The Low and Stable profile protected students from school dropout, underachievement, and substance use, whereas the High and Decreasing profile was associated with lower achievement, and more substance use.
Taken together, our results offer novel and nuanced person-centered insight into the relations between students’ achievement goals and various markers of academic and socioemotional functioning over the course of the educational trajectory. The results from this thesis can be used to inform developmentally relevant interventions seeking to enhance students’ mastery goals, perceived competence, and self-concept to promote their psychosocial functioning over time.