Achievement goal orientations scale:: The study of validity and reliability

Background/Problem Statement: One of the most considerable problems of students in our country is that, the goals they have determined for learning and variables that motivate them do seem dysfunctional. Nevertheless the number of valid scales that assess university students' achievement goals and their believes about learning is fairly limited. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The present study investigated the validity and reliability of Turkish version of Achievement Goal Orientations Scale (AGOS) that measures the attitudes of university students about achievement goal orientations at learning tasks. Methods: The sample of study consists of 607 university students who were enrolled in different programs at Sakarya University, in Turkey. Of the participants 298 were female and 309 were male, and the mean age of them was 20. In this study language equivalence, construct validity, test-retest and internal consistency reliabilities and item analysis of the scale were examined. Analyses were conducted using LISREL 8.54 and SPSS 11.5. Findings/Results: Findings of language equivalence study indicated that correlations between Turkish and English forms of AGOS were .93 for learning goal orientation (LGO), .90 for performance-approach goal orientation (PPGO) and .96 for performance-avoidance goal orientation (PVGO). Also results showed that the scale had quite high validity and reliability scores and that the three factors of the original scale were confirmed. Factor loadings ranged from .47 to .78 for LGO, from .67 to .92 for PPGO and from .48 to .69 for PVGO. Internal consistency estimates were .77, .79 and .78 for three scales respectively, using Cronbach's alpha. Three week test-retest reliability estimates were .95 for LGO, .91 for PPGO, and .94 for PVGO. The item-total correlations ranged from .42 to .58 for LGO, .48 to .61 for PPGO and .48 to .60 for PVGO. Conclusions/Recommendations: The overall results of this study showed that this scale capable enough to measure achievement goals of students in a valid and reliable way. It is believed that this scale could serve as a valid instrument in the fields of learning, counselling and educational psychology.