Students' beliefs that success in science depends on exceptional talent negatively impact their motivation to learn. For example, such beliefs have been shown to be a major factor steering students away from taking science and math courses in high school and college. In the present study, we tested a novel story-based instruction that models how…

Person-centered analyses of achievement goals have been scarce in studies of elementary school children. In this investigation, the authors examined the natural combinations of achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, performance-avoidance) among 3rd grade students (N = 195) and how clusters differed in self-, teacher-, and peer-reported…

Previous work examines the relationships between personality traits and intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. We replicate and extend previous work to examine how personality may relate to achievement goals, efficacious beliefs, and mindset about intelligence. Approximately 200 undergraduates responded to the survey with a 150 participants replicating…

The present study aimed to examine distance learners' goal profiles and their contrasting patterns of learning and achievements at three different points during an academic year, i.e. in the beginning of the course in relation to learners' general orientations to learning, at the middle of the course in relation to learners' completion of an…

Recent research studies have indicated that self-efficacy and hope explain a significant, independent portion of the variability in academic performance (D. H. Adelabu, 2008). Despite this recognition, there is an absence of research outlining the developmental trajectories of the aforementioned constructs over time. The author used latent growth…