ABSTRACT

The manner in which young people set academic achievement goals, engage in academic tasks, and relate to success or failure has a decisive influence on how they shape their educational identity. What motivates adolescents and emerging adults to engage in learning commitments? How are their motivational orientations related to their identity development? Kaplan and Flum (2010) argued that it is important to analyze identity and achievement goal orientations together in school-aged populations. The present research comes as an empirical extension to the necessity of linking the two dimensions, in an attempt to better understand how achievement goal orientations are associated with identity processes in emerging adulthood. The 2X2 achievement goal framework (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) and the process-focused identity model (Crocetti, Rubini, & Meeus, 2008) were employed. Gender and educational level differences (high-school versus university students) for achievement goals and educational identity processes were investigated. Also, we analyzed how different academic goal orientations predict educational identity processes, in high-school and university students.

KEYWORDS: educational identity, achievement goals, gender, emerging adulthood, Romania

PAGES: 1-13