School goal structure: Associations with students’ perceptions of their teachers as emotionally supportive, academic self-concept, intrinsic motivation, effort, and help seeking behavior

• Learning and performance school goal structures correlated negatively but weakly.
• Learning structure predicted perception of the teachers as emotionally supportive.
• Learning structure also predicted students’ motivation positively.
• Performance structure was negligibly related to the perception of teachers.
• Performance structure was also negligibly related to students’ motivation.

The purpose of the present study was to test how students’ perceptions of the school goal structure were related to their perception of the teachers as emotionally supportive, and to their academic self-concept, intrinsic motivation for schoolwork, effort, and help-seeking behavior. The participants were 8971 Norwegian students from fourth through tenth grade. The data were analyzed by means of structural equation modeling (SEM). Learning goal structure was positively and strongly related to the students’ perceptions of their teachers. It was also both directly and indirectly related to self-concept, motivation, effort, and help-seeking behavior. The indirect relations were mediated through the students’ perceptions of their teachers. The study strongly indicates that schools should strive to establish a learning goal structure.