Student investment in a research methods course: The influence of achievement goals on motivational patterns

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of mastery, performance approach and performance avoidance goals on patterns of achievement-related cognition and affect in first-year students undertaking a research methods module. Students' goals and measures of self-determination were assessed towards the beginning of the module, and measures of achievement-related cognition and affect were assessed before and after each of three graded statistics assignments. Students were grouped by means of a cluster analysis on their achievement goals, and repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance revealed that a cluster of failure-avoidant students exhibited motivational patterns that were significantly more debilitating than those exhibited by a cluster of mastery-oriented students and achievement-oriented overstrivers. Implications for enhancing the potentially dysfunctional motivation of failure-avoidant students are discussed.