Abstract
Abundant research has shown that the endorsement of performance–avoidance goals in academic contexts is associated with negative outcomes, including poor academic achievement. The present study tests students’ social class as a moderator of the relationship between performance–avoidance goals and achievement. Two hundred thirty students (106 lower-class students and 124 upper-class students, Mage = 18.57, SD = 1.28) were asked to report the highest academic degree obtained by their mother and father and complete a performance–avoidance goal scale. Participants’ initial academic level was measured. In addition, depending on the condition, they were led to believe they had great (vs. poor) chances to succeed at the university. They then solved Advanced Progressive Matrices measuring their achievement. As expected, performance–avoidance goals negatively predicted achievement only for lower-class students, and this moderation mainly appeared for high academic achievers. The manipulation of the success versus failure expectancies did not moderate the effect. These results confirm that the adoption of performance–avoidance goals would be especially deleterious for lower-class students who succeed, supporting an interpretation in terms of the upward mobility process lower-class students achieve when succeeding in higher education.
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We certify that all the measures and experimental conditions of the study are reported in the manuscript. The full material of this study as well as the raw data are available on Open Science Framework at osf.io/375a8.
It is worth noting that the main effect of initial ability was marginal, B = .09, t(214) = 1.81, p = .072, η 2p = .01, 95% CI [− .008, .19], the higher participants’ initial ability, the higher they tend to achieve. Furthermore, feedback interacted with initial abilities, B = − .11, t(214) = − 2.22, p = .028, η 2p = .02, 95% CI [− .21, − .01]. Simple slope analyses revealed that initial abilities positively predicted achievement in the failure feedback condition, B = .21, t(214) = 2.74, p = .007, η 2p = .03, 95% CI [.05, .35], but was not significantly related to achievement in the success feedback condition, B = − .02, t(214) < 1.
Since the reliability of the performance-avoidance goal score is quite low, in supplementary analyses, a global avoidance score was computed. This score aggregated the performance-avoidance and other-avoidance goal items (α = .73, M = 3.96, SD = 1.08). Then, the same regression model as before, but replacing performance–avoidance or other-avoidance goals by the global avoidance goal score was conducted. The main effect of performance-avoidance goals was significant, B = − .19, t(214) = − 2.34, p = .020. In addition, although performance-avoidance goals did not significantly interact with social class, B = .12, t(214) = 1.54, p = .13, the 3-way interaction between social class, initial academic abilities, and performance avoidance-goals was significant, B = .14, t(214) = 2.84, p = .005. Just like for performance–avoidance goals, the moderation of the effect of performance–avoidance goals by students’ social class was significant for high academic achievers (i.e., one standard deviation above the mean), B = .36, t(214) = 2.98, p = .003, but was not significant for low academic achievers (i.e., one standard deviation below the mean), B = − .12, t(214) = − 1.05, p = .29.
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This research was supported by the Conseil Régional Auvergne Rhône Alpes.
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Bruno, A., Jury, M., Toczek-Capelle, MC. et al. Are performance–avoidance goals always deleterious for academic achievement in college? The moderating role of social class. Soc Psychol Educ 22, 539–555 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-019-09480-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-019-09480-y