Effects of Perceived Parental and Personal Goal Orientations on Student Engagement in Mathematics Lessons: Differences Between Underclassmen and Upperclassmen

Researchers studying achievement goal orientations theory generally approached it with a domain-generic perspective. Learners’ goals and motivation to learn, however, can vary by subject. This study examined the relationships among perceived parental goals, students’ personal goals, and engagement in a subject-specific domain (mathematics lessons), a novel context (Türkiye) and era (post COVID-19). The study explored how goals are adopted and how they affect engagement taking learners’ age into account. The participants comprised of 875 adolescents enrolled in high schools in Türkiye. For comparison purposes, they were grouped as underclassmen (9th and 10th graders) and upperclassmen (11th and12th graders). SEM analyses revealed that parental goals had a strong influence on adolescents’ adoption of personal goals. Parental mastery-approach goals had significant medium effects on students’ mastery-approach goals (underclassmen: β = .454, f 2 = 0.21; upperclassmen: β = .478, f 2 = 0.27, p < .001) and parental performance-approach goals had medium to large positive effects on students’ performance-approach (underclassmen: β = .516, f 2 = 0.26; upperclassmen: β = .605, f 2 = 0.42, p < .001) and performance-avoidance goals (underclassmen: β = .423, f 2 = 0.15; upperclassmen: β = .494, f 2 = 0.24, p < .001). In addition, student mastery-approach goals predicted classroom engagement more consistently than performance-related goals. Substantial group differences were observed between underclassmen and upperclassmen regarding the effects of goal orientations on affective engagement ( z = 2.922, p < .01 for the difference between the effects of student mastery-approach goals and z = 2.062, p < .05 for the difference between the effects of student performance-avoidance goals). Findings underscore the necessity of raising parental awareness about how their achievement-related messages are perceived by their children, and increased opportunities should be provided to learners to help them better regulate their emotions.