Students’ perceived classroom goal structure and its relations with their achievement goals in Chinese reading classrooms

Previous studies on achievement goals have rarely comprehensively discussed specific instructional dimensions of classroom goal structure. This study examined the relationships between different instructional dimensions of classroom goal structure and achievement goals among 833 eighth-grade students in a Chinese reading classroom context. The descriptive statistics indicated that students adopted high levels of trichotomous achievement goals and simultaneously perceived a high mastery-oriented goal structure and high task and autonomy/time dimensions of a performance-oriented goal structure. The results of structural equation modelling and the multiple-indicator and multiple-cause model showed that after controlling for school background variables, the task and recognition/evaluation dimensions of the mastery-oriented goal structure had significantly positive relationships with students' mastery goals, and the recognition/evaluation dimension of the performance-oriented goal structure had significant and positive relationships with students' performance goals. The findings indicate the necessity of examining the instructional dimensions of classroom goal structures in specific subjects and cultural backgrounds.