Achievement orientation: Origins, influences, and outcomes

Adolescent orientation toward achievement is hypothesized to be composed of motivation, school achievement, and family values. Previous studies suggest that ability and effort, internal and external orientations, and the intellectual and cultural environment of the family were found to affect adolescent orientation toward achievement. A study was conducted to further explore these proposed components of achievement and reveal the origins, influences, and outcomes of achievement orientation. African-American, Anglo-American, and Hispanic-American sixth grade students were administered multiple questionnaires that addressed different aspects of achievement orientation. After focus groups identified any biased and confusing items, factor analyses were conducted on the instruments. Both the original and revised subscales were correlated with academic achievement outcome variables (i.e., cumulative grade point average, SAT math scores, SAT reading scores, socioeconomic status). Using GPA as the primary outcome variable, Hotelling T-tests between the original and revised subscales revealed that overall the revised subscales were more strongly related to GPA across subsamples than the originals. Furthermore, linear regression analysis demonstrated that intrinsically-oriented subscales and subscales related to boredom significantly contributed to the prediction of GPA for Anglo-Americans and African-Americans, but only a subscale related to unknown control over achievement contributed to the prediction of GPA for Hispanic-Americans. However, post-hoc analyses revealed intrinsically-oriented items as having the strongest relationship with GPA across subsamples. The results both supported and expanded upon the literature relating to achievement orientation.