DIMENSIONS OF ACHIEVEMENT GOAL ORIENTATION AS PREDICTORS OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS' ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN BIOLOGY IN ANAMBRA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study investigated the dimensions of achievement goal orientation as predictors of secondary school students' academic achievement in Biology in Anambra State, Nigeria. Two research questions and two corresponding null hypotheses guided the study, which adopted a correlational predictive research design. The population comprised 16,236 senior secondary year two Biology students in the state. A sample of 750 students was drawn from 30 schools across 3 education zones through a multi-stage sampling procedure, of whom 600 cases with complete achievement records were retained for the regression analyses. The Achievement Goal Orientation Questionnaire, adapted from the Goal Orientation and Learning Strategies Survey, was used to measure four dimensions of goal orientation, namely mastery, performance, mastery-avoidance, and performance-avoidance, and yielded a Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of 0.86. Students' cumulative Biology scores for three terms served as the achievement measure. Data were analysed using simple and multiple linear regression at the 0.05 level of significance. Findings showed that goal orientation significantly predicted academic achievement in Biology, accounting for 10.6 per cent of the variance in scores, while the four dimensions jointly accounted for 12.0 per cent, with mastery-avoidance emerging as the strongest individual contributor, followed closely by mastery, then performance-avoidance and performance orientation. It was concluded that the goals students privately set for themselves meaningfully shape their eventual performance in Biology. It was recommended, among other things, that Biology teachers and school counsellors should deliberately design activities that nurture mastery-oriented and self-referenced goal-setting behaviour among students.