Achievement Goals Theory: Evidence from College Students in Pakistan

Relationship among goal orientation, study strategies and academic achievement was explored in a university setting on 144 students of post-graduate classes through Motivated Learning Strategies Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachi, 1991). Results supported the traditional findings in the western researches on revised achievement goal theory including greater and significant use of study strategies when students have predominantly learning goals rather than performance goals. More specifically, learning goals facilitated all study strategies, and in interaction with performance goals strengthened elaboration and meta-cognitive study strategies as well. Students of applied sciences had more learning orientation whereas those of pure sciences had greater performance orientation. Overall, discipline; pure, social, applied sciences, explained a larger variance in explaining Grade Point Average (GPA) of the students than their academic goals or study strategies.