Understanding students' motivation in project work: a 2 x 2 achievement goal approach.
BACKGROUND
The project work (PW) initiative was launched in 2000 by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, to encourage application of knowledge across disciplines, and to develop thinking, communication, collaboration, and metacognitive skills. Although PW has been introduced for a few years, few studies have examined the motivation of students in PW, especially with the use of the recently proposed 2 x 2 achievement goal framework.


OBJECTIVE
To use a cluster analytic approach to identify students' achievement goal profiles at an intra-individual level, and to examine their links to various psychological characteristics and perceived outcomes in PW.


METHODS
Participants were 491 Secondary 2 students (mean age = 13.78, SD = 0.77) from two government coeducational schools.


METHODS
Cluster analysis was performed to identify distinct subgroups of students with similar achievement goal profiles. One-way MANOVAs, followed by post hoc Tukey HSD tests for pairwise comparisons were used to determine whether there was any significant difference amongst clusters in terms of the psychological characteristics and perceived outcomes in PW.


RESULTS
Four distinct clusters of students were identified. The cluster with high achievement goals and the cluster with moderately high goals had the most positive psychological characteristics and perceived outcomes. In contrast, the cluster with very low scores for all four achievement goals had the most maladaptive profile.


CONCLUSIONS
The study provides support for the 2 x 2 achievement goal framework, and demonstrates that multiple goals can operate simultaneously. However, it highlights the need for cross-cultural studies to look into the approach-avoidance dimension in the 2 x 2 achievement goal framework.
National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. woonchia.liu@nie.edu.sg
Woon Chia
WC
Liu
C K John
CK
Wang
Oon Seng
OS
Tan
Jessie
J
Ee
Caroline
C
Koh
D000124:Achievement; D000293:Adolescent; D003142:Communication; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003479:Curriculum; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011340:Problem Solving; D012846:Singapore; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D013850:Thinking