Motives, goals, and adaptive patterns of performance in Asian American and Anglo American students

The relations between achievement motives, achievement goals, and motivational outcomes on a math task were explored in this correlational study of Asian American (n=105) and Anglo American (n=98) college students. Students completed pretest questionnaires about their two motives (motive to approach success and fear of failure) and three achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, performance-avoidance) prior to working on a mathematics task, which was then followed by a post-test questionnaire that assessed students' competence perceptions, interest, and anxiety for the task. Asian American students were found to display on average higher levels of fear of failure, performance-avoidance goals, anxiety, and math performance than Anglo American students. More importantly, however, structural equation modeling indicated that the relations among motives, goals, and outcomes were similar for the two ethnic groups. These results also revealed that the two achievement motives were differentially linked to mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals. In addition, the three achievement goals were found to mediate the relations between motives and the outcomes. The achievement goals also were linked differentially to the outcomes. The results are discussed in terms of the generalizability of a hierarchical model of motivation to both Asian American and Anglo American students.