Do Achievement Goals Differently Orient Students’ Academic Engagement Through Learning Strategy and Academic Self-Efficacy and Vary by Grade

BACKGROUND: Previous cross-sectional studies were on the basis of three categories of achievement goal orientation; therefore, it is not yet possible to fully examine whether achievement goal orientation affects academic engagement through learning strategies and self-efficacy and whether those effects vary by grade. Then, it is necessary to further explore whether different achievement goal orientations affect academic engagement through the mediation of learning strategies and academic self-efficacy from the perspective of integration of achievement goal orientation theory and social cognitive theory under the premise of four classifications of achievement goal orientation, if so, whether there is consistent-path structure between grades. METHODS: Participants were 1429 high school students (647 male,782 female) were token as subjects through cluster sampling. The Achievement Goal Orientation Scale, Learning Strategies Scale, Academic self-efficacy Scale,and Academic Engagement Scale were used to measure achievement goal orientations, learning strategies, academic self-efficacy and academic engagement. RESULTS: The mastery approach, performance approach, and performance avoidance indirectly predicted academic engagement through the chained mediated effects of learning strategies and academic self-efficacy, respectively. There were no direct or indirect predictive effects of mastery avoidance on students’ academic engagement. The path structure constructs were consistent across grades, except for grade differences in the predictive relationships between mastery approach on learning strategies and mastery avoidance on learning strategies. CONCLUSION: As external achievement goals originate from others, regardless of valence approach or avoidance, performance goals indirectly orient academic engagement through chain multiple mediators of learning strategies and academic self-efficacy. As internal achievement goal originates from the individual itself, the mastery approach not only directly but also indirectly orients academic engagement through chain multiple mediators of learning strategies and academic self-efficacy. The path structure remains consistent but local relations vary across school years in China. Finally, the possible psychological mechanisms of goal orientations are discussed.