Goal-Setting among Students with Different Levels of Academic Achievement

Introduction. As ever there is a high demand for higher education, the problem of goal setting to increase student academic performance becomes relevant. Russian and foreign authors are addressing this problem and looking for ways to improve the situation, because every year many students fail and leave their colleges/universities. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the characteristics of goal setting among students with advanced and average academic performances.
Materials and Methods. 98 full-time sophomore students from the Moscow State University of Psychology and Education were surveyed. To determine the characteristics of student’s goal setting, the following diagnostic complex was employed: Methodology for studying the motives of educational activity, Academic Motivation Scale (AMS), Testing “Meaningful Orientationsˮ, Methodology for measuring the parameters of life goals, Questionnaire for identifying the severity of self-control in the emotional sphere, activity and behavior, Questionnaire “Action controlˮ, methodology “Style of self-regulation of educational activity”. The following methods of mathematical statistics were used: Frequency and factor analysis of the IBM program SPSS Statistics 21.
Results. The substantiation of goal-setting as an initiative orientation at the motivational-semantic, emotional-volitional and operational levels made it possible to specify the features of goal-setting in students with high and average academic performance. Students with high academic performance are dominated by internal educational, cognitive, professional motives, meaningful life orientations, and the ability to develop and implement goals. Students with average academic performance are characterized by external known motives, they experience problems of planning, thinking through, detailing actions to achieve the intended goals.
Discussion and Conclusion. The conclusions drawn by the author contribute to the development of ideas about goal-setting as an integral process at different levels of orientation and its role in improving the academic performance of students. The materials of the article will help researchers and practitioners in solving the problems of developing and implementing programs for providing psychological assistance and support to students who have difficulty setting and achieving goals in the learning process at universities with various educational backgrounds and academic levels.