Students' goals (motives) for their schooling have been the focus of much recent research and have been shown to significantly influence important aspects of their cognitive engagement and academic achievement. This paper presents the results of a qualitative investigation into the nature and characteristics of students' social and academic goals,…

This paper outlines the development of a quantitative instrument designed to measure students' multiple achievement goals and key aspects of their cognitive engagement in Australian educational settings. The paper demonstrates the use of congeneric measurement models in assessing and improving the validity of the scales comprising the Goal…

The relationships between middle school students' multiple motivational goal orientations and their use of multiple cognitive and metacognitive strategies were studied with a focus on relations between these motivational and cognitive variables and students' academic achievement in two curriculum areas. Participants were 602 middle school students…

Age, gender, cultural, and socioeconomic differences in relations between middle school students' motivational goal orientations, their cognitive and metacognitive strategies, and their academic achievement in a variety of curriculum domains were studied. Studies to date typically have used either cognitive or motivational variables to account for…

This paper discusses the process through which a powerful multidimensional measure of affect and cognition in relation to adult learning of computing skills was derived from its early theoretical stages to its validation using structural equation modeling. The discussion emphasizes the importance of ensuring a strong substantive base from which to…