The purpose of the study was to investigate the longitudinal reciprocal relationship between achievement goals and self-determined motivation of students transitioning from middle school to high school. Participants were 3343 students from 9th to 11th grade. The overall results showed that varying degrees of self-determined motivation from middle…

This study investigates whether friendship quality, academic achievement, and mastery goal orientation predict each other across the transition to middle school. Participants were 146 Latino students (75 girls) followed from the end of elementary school through the first year of middle school. Measures included positive and negative friendship…

This longitudinal study builds on research addressing changes in achievement goal orientations (AG) across the transition to middle school. We had two objectives. The first was to identify and describe different development trajectories of AG (mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance) from the last year of elementary school (Grade…

In this paper, we review findings from Project Competence on the nature of personality development from middle childhood through the early adult years and place these findings in the context of current research on temperament and personality traits. In a series of studies using data drawn from the Project Competence longitudinal project, we have…