Resumen de Perceptions of parent goals and their contribution to student achievement goal orientation and engagement in the classroom: Grade-level differences across adolescence

Eleftheria Gonida, Grigoris Kiosseoglou, Katerina Voulala

• The aim of this study was twofold: (a) to examine student perceptions of their parent goals and their achievement goal orientations across adolescence, and (b) to examine how perceived parent goals relate to student achievement goal orientations, and engagement in the classroom (both emotional and behavioral) from early to late adolescence. A set of self-report questionnaires measuring the above variables was administered to three age groups of male and female students attending 7th (N=139), 9th (N=149), and 11th grade (N=138). Regarding the first aim of the study, results indicated that 9th and 11th graders scored lower than 7th graders on all student goal orientation scales as well as on the perceived parent performance goal scale. Regarding the second aim, multi-sample path analyses showed that the pattern of relationships among the variables under examination was different for the three grade levels. The significant and non-significant paths among the variables are discussed for each grade level. Implications of the above results for parents as well as for future research are pointed out.