Abstract
Personal best (PB) goal setting refers to the pursuit of individual improvement through striving to outperform a previous best level of performance or effort. Although promising evidence has been building, numerous empirical questions remain to be answered, including how PB goal setting may operate alongside various contextual predictors of academic functioning. Applying the Academic Demands-Resources (AD-R) framework, the present study examined how academic resources and demands (conceptualized by way of teachers’ interpersonal styles: autonomy-supportive and psychologically-controlling/thwarting teaching) and personal resources (PB goal setting) are associated with parent reports of students’ behavioral engagement (homework behavior). The study comprised 414 Australian secondary school students. Results of structural equation modeling revealed that PB goal setting significantly predicted positive homework behavior and also moderated the association between psychologically-controlling teaching practices and homework behavior, such that PB goal setting was associated with positive homework behavior under conditions of high demands. The present work highlights the potentially unique contribution of PB goal setting in facilitating students’ adaptive engagement and demonstrates the utility of the AD-R framework for better understanding students’ engagement in the academic context.
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Notes
χ2 (217) = 462.906, p <.001, RMSEA = 0.052, CFI = 0.94.
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Helena Granziera, Andrew J. Martin and Rebecca J. Collie. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Helena Granziera and all authors commented on subsequent versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Author 1 and Author 2 are on the Editorial Board of Social Psychology of Education.
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Granziera, H., Collie, R.J. & Martin, A.J. The role of personal best goal setting and teaching style in homework behavior: An academic demands-resources perspective. Soc Psychol Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-024-09896-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-024-09896-1