A Closer Look at College Students: Self-Efficacy and Goal Orientation

Given that student retention is now one of the leading challenges faced by colleges and universities, research seeking to understand students' reasons for attrition is of critical importance. Two factors influence students' underachievement and subsequent dropping-out of college: selfefficacy and goal orientation. Self-efficacy refers to peoples' judgments about their abilities to complete a task. Goal orientations refer to the motives that students have for completing tasks, which may include developing and improving ability (mastery goals), demonstrating ability (performance-approach goals), and hiding lack of ability (performance-avoidance goals). This study examined differences among goal orientations and self-efficacy using two distinct student groups: college students in good academic standing (GPA of 2.0 or higher) and college students on academic probation (GPA of less than 2.0). Results indicated that self-efficacy and mastery goals were positively related to academic standing whereas performance-avoidance goals were negatively related to academic standing. Students in good academic standing reported having higher self-efficacy and adopted significantly more mastery goals toward learning than students on academic probation. Among students who reported having high self-efficacy, those on academic probation reported adopting significantly more performanceavoidance goals than those in good academic standing. These findings suggest that teachers should identify those students with not only low self-efficacy, but those also adopting performance-avoidance goals. Teachers and administrators may be able to provide guidance to students who have beliefs and goals that contain maladaptive patterns of learning that sabotage their ability to succeed in school.