title: The role of achievement goal orientations in students' perceptions of and preferences for classroom environment.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Recent research on achievement motivation has begun to examine the effects of environmental factors affecting students' motivational beliefs and goal tendencies. However, when interpreting and applying the results, individual factors underlying students' different perceptions of their learning environment are often ignored. An implicit assumption seems to be that regardless of their dispositional differences (e.g. motivational basis), students will experience and benefit from instructional practices in the same way.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This paper highlights the importance of students' dispositional motivational factors when examining differences in their perceptions of and preferences for the learning environment. The study builds on a conception of student motivation that emphasizes the interaction of individual and contextual factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  Questionnaires served as self-report tools and assessed students' achievement goal orientations, self-esteem, causality beliefs, academic withdrawal and perceptions of and preferences for the learning environment. The sample consisted of 208 sixth grade elementary school students.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Based on latent class cluster analysis and one-way analyses of variance, it was found that students' perceptions of and preferences for the learning environment vary depending on differences in students' motivational tendencies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Students' dispositional motivational characteristics should be taken into account both in theoretical considerations and in instructional interventions.
authors.affiliation: University of Helsinki, Department of Education, Finland. anna.tapola@helsinki.fi
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tapola
authors.forename: Markku
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Niemivirta
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012649:Self Concept; D012931:Social Environment; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014477:Underachievement