Structural equation model reviewing relationships among goal orientation, academic self-efficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour and achievement

International Journal of Management (IJM)
Volume 7, Issue 1, Jan-Feb 2016, pp. 94-102, Article ID: IJM_07_01_010
Available online at
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ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
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STRUCTURAL EQUATION MODEL
REVIEWING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG
GOAL ORIENTATION, ACADEMIC SELFEFFICACY, ACADEMIC HELP-SEEKING
BEHAVIOUR AND ACHIEVEMENT
Prof. Hemant Lata Sharma
Dean, Faculty of Education, M.D. University, Rohtak, Haryana, India
Gunjan Nasa
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Education,
M.D. University, Rohtak, Haryana, India
ABSTRACT
This study explored the association among Goal Orientation, Academic
Self-efficacy, Academic Help-seeking Behaviour and Achievement on a sample
of 600 secondary school students using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
for data analysis and to see the impact. Goal orientation is an outlook toward
demonstrating ability in achievement situations. Academic Self-efficacy is a
person's belief in his/her ability to succeed in an academic situation.
Academic help-seeking behaviour is 'seeking others help' at the time when one
faces difficulties or uncertainty in the course of his/her education in
classroom. Achievement is the accomplishment or acquired proficiency in the
performance of an individual with respect to a given knowledge or skill.
Structural Equation Modeling is a powerful technique that can combine
complex path models with latent variables. By using SEM, researchers can
specify confirmatory factor analysis models, regression models and complex
path models. In the present study, relationship among all the variables has

been visualized by a graphical path diagram showing the positive relationship
among goal orientation and its approaches with academic self-efficacy and
academic help-seeking behaviour. It was also investigated that Academic SelfEfficacy, Academic help-seeking Behaviour and Achievement have significant
impact on Goal Orientation and its approaches. The practical implications
and future directions of the study are discussed.
Key words: Goal orientation, Academic Self-Efficacy, Academic Helpseeking Behaviour and Achievement

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Structural Equation Model Reviewing Relationships Among Goal Orientation, Academic
Self-Efficacy, Academic Help-Seeking Behaviour and Achievement

Cite this Article: Prof. Hemant Lata Sharma and Gunjan Nasa. Structural
Equation Model Reviewing Relationships among Goal Orientation, Academic
Self-Efficacy, Academic Help-Seeking Behaviour and Achievement.
International Journal of Management, 7(1), 2016, pp. 94-102.
/>Goal orientation, academic self-efficacy and academic help-seeking are important
component of self-regulatory learning. Self-regulated learning is an active,
constructive process whereby learners set their goals for their learning and then
attempt to monitor, regulate and control their cognition, motivation and behaviour,
guided and constrained by their goals and the contextual features in the environment
(Pintrich, 2000, p. 453). Goals are widely documented as being vital to the
understanding of motivated behaviour, with different research disciplines
emphasizing different levels and goal-oriented approaches related to different
variables. A goal refers to what a person plans to do in a particular achievement
situation. Goal orientations determine the way students approach, engage in and

respond to learning activities (Ames, 1992). Goals basically help an individual in
finding out a way to reach at their highest point of achievement. Various researches
show that goals persuade students' achievement, intelligence, learning strategies, job
involvement and metacognition. Over the past two decades, a majority of the
theoretical and empirical work conducted in the achievement motivation literature has
used an achievement goal perspective. Therefore, Goal orientation theory has been the
focus of a great deal of research in education due to the impact that goals are
hypothesized to have on student performance. The purpose of the current study is to
expand research in this field by investigating goal orientation in association with
academic self-efficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour and achievement.
The goal orientation outlook has been used to explain achievement behaviours in a
assortment of learning environments with various approaches like mastery,
performance, trait, etc. Earlier views of achievement goal theory, significant research
and a consistent pattern of results demonstrated that an individual’s achievement
orientation in a particular domain can be characterized by two distinct achievement
profiles: mastery goal orientation approach and performance goal orientation
approach. A mastery approach describes an academic context that tends to foster
students’ adoption of mastery goals. A performance approach is a context in which
the practices, policies and procedures foster students’ adoption of performance goals.
Mastery oriented children are more active and invest greater effort into the learning
process, which may translate into better performance. They value and are willing to
undertake activities that allow them to improve their knowledge and perceive effort as
a positive effective way to achieve their goals. Mistakes are considered a normal step
in the learning process. Mastery goals also labeled as 'learning goals' or 'task focused
goals' correspond to the will to acquire knowledge and develop competencies.
Students having mastery orientation are more contented and accomplish better
performance, seem to be more willing to pursue challenging tasks, have positive
feeling towards the learning situation, and exhibit an adaptive attributional pattern.
Whereas Performance goals are generally associated with negative outcomes,
including withdrawal from challenging activities, negative effect and poorer strategy

use, ineffective problem-solving, and worse academic achievement. Students pursuing
performance goals are more concerned with demonstrating their abilities relative to
other students. Performance goals also referred to as 'ego-focused goals’ or 'relativeability goals’ correspond to the will to demonstrate competencies relative to others.

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Prof. Hemant Lata Sharma and Gunjan Nasa
Students with a performance goal see intelligence as fixed, avoid challenging tasks in
an effort to avoid negative evaluations, are less likely to be intrinsically motivated,
and consider errors as indicative of a lack of ability.
Recently, mastery and performance goal orientations have been bifurcated as
approach and avoidance goals (Elliot and McGregor, 2001). In Approach-oriented
goals individuals are positively motivated to look good and receive favourable verdict
from others. In Avoidance-oriented goals individuals can be negatively motivated to
avoid failure and to avoid looking bungling. First, a trichotomous achievement goal
model was proposed (VandeWalle, 1997) in which the performance goal construct is
partitioned into separate approach and avoidance goals, and the mastery goal is
treated as an approach goal. Then, a more elaborate 2×2 achievement goal model was
posited (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) in which the mastery goal construct, as well as the
performance goal construct, is bifurcated in terms of approach and avoidance.
Mastery-approach oriented students are involved in completely mastering an
academic task; in contrast, mastery-avoidance oriented students are involved in
avoiding misinterpretation of the task. Individuals with a performance approach
orientation want to be the best, to appear to be the most competent. As a result, they
work hard and put in a lot of effort in order to surpass their peers. Whereas
individuals with a performance avoidance orientation try to avoid making mistakes

and appear incompetent, they take the known path, the unchallenging tasks, and are
frequently reluctant to show their work to others until it is perfect.
Academic self-efficacy is gaining augmented credence as a determinant of goal
orientation. During the past two decades, self-efficacy has come out as a highly
effective interpreter of students' motivation and learning. As a performance-based
measure of perceived capability, self-efficacy differs theoretically and
psychometrically from related motivational constructs, such as outcome expectations,
self-concept, or locus of control. Self-efficacy beliefs have been found to be sensitive
to slight changes in students' performance context, to interact with self-regulated
learning processes, and to mediate students' academic achievement. Academic selfefficacy is found to be significantly associated with students' learning, cognitive
engagement, analytical thinking, academic commitment, strategy use, persistence,
susceptibility to negative emotions and achievement (Linenbrink and Pintrich, 2002).
Past research suggests that goal orientation may impact learning by means of its
influence on self-efficacy. For individuals with performance goals, any kind of failure
is seen as an indication of having low ability which leads to more failure-related to
anxiety than for those who are more likely to hold mastery goals and take failure as a
natural part of learning. Students who are permissible to adopt their own goal
experiences, have increased level of self-efficacy as they observe their progress and
note the skills being gained. When the goal is accomplished, they feel a heightened
sense of capability and motivated to set new goals.
A relatively new branch of social psychology and motivation has been
investigating 'help-seeking'. Knowing when and how to seek help during learning is a
key self-regulatory skill (Pintrich, 2000). Over the last two decades, adaptive helpseeking has been found to be an active strategy that serves as an aid to achieving
academic success in the face of difficult or challenging tasks. Help-seeking
behaviours are often linked to goal-orientation. Mastery goals give encouragement to
the individuals for increasing their competence or help in achieving task mastery.
Performance-approach goals give emphasis on demonstrating students' ability related
to others or directs them in proving their self-worth. Performance-avoidance goals

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Structural Equation Model Reviewing Relationships Among Goal Orientation, Academic
Self-Efficacy, Academic Help-Seeking Behaviour and Achievement

show the way to the students to avoid being incompetent or less able than others.
Students with mastery goals are found to be more expected to manifest adaptive helpseeking. Volet and Karabenick (2006) maintained that help-seeking is not an
indicative of dependency but rather the opposite; that is, adaptive help-seekers
"become less rather than more reliant on others when future difficulties arise". On this
account, help-seeking is recognized as a component of self-efficacy, which consists
not only of self-regulated learning but also of one's belief that he or she can perform
well on a designated task (Pintrich, 2000; Schunk & Ertmer, 2000). The present study
seeks to examine the unique contribution of each motivational constructs (mastery
and performance goal, academic self-efficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour and
achievement) in predicting the educational outcomes in terms of an individual (i.e., a
long term educational outcome for an individual's lifelong well-being).

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1. To study the relationship among goal orientation and its approaches with academic
self-efficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour and achievement of secondary school
students.
2. To study the relationship among academic self-efficacy, academic help-seeking
behaviour and achievement of secondary school students.
3. To predict the goal orientation and its approaches on the basis of academic selfefficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour, achievement and demographic variables
of secondary school students.
4. To develop a model for goal orientation and its approaches, academic self-efficacy,
academic help-seeking behaviour and achievement on the basis of causal relationship

among secondary school students.

HYPOTHESES OF THE STUDY
1. There exists no significant relationship among goal orientation and its approaches
with academic self-efficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour and achievement of
secondary school students.
2. There exists no significant relationship among academic self-efficacy, academic helpseeking behaviour and achievement of secondary school students.
3. There exists no significant impact of academic self-efficacy, academic help-seeking
behaviour, achievement and demographic variables on goal orientation and its
approaches of secondary school students.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY





Variables- Goal orientation and its approaches were taken as dependent and academic
help-seeking behaviour was taken as independent variable.
Method- Descriptive Survey Method was used.
Sample- In the present study, a sample of 600 secondary school students of class X
from government and private schools of Faridabad district was taken.
Research Instruments- In the present study, Goal Orientation Questionnaire by Elliot
and McGregor (2001), Academic self-efficacy questionnaire by Muris (2001) and
Academic Help-seeking Scale adapted by Winograd (2014) and achievement scores
of previous class were used for data collection.

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Prof. Hemant Lata Sharma and Gunjan Nasa
Procedure for Data collection
The research instruments were administered on the subjects personally by the
researcher herself. The respondents were informed that the information given by them
would be kept confidential and would be used for research purpose only. They were
asked to follow the instructions given on each questionnaire. They took about 30
minutes to fill the questionnaires. The sheets were collected back on the spot.
Statistical Techniques
Pearson correlation coefficient, Stepwise regression analysis was used and data was
analyzed by using SPSS 18.0 version.
SEM with AMOS was used to develop a model on the basis of causal relationship
among variables.
Results
Given the current data, the distributions of mastery and performance approach goal
orientations, academic self-efficacy and academic help-seeking behaviour measures
were normal. The descriptive analysis of each item was presented below in Table 1.
Table 1 Descriptive Analysis Regarding to the Measured Indicators in the Model
Variable

Mean

Median

GO
ASE
AHS
Ach

28.65
20.77
14.29
600

29
20
14
66

Standard
Deviation
7.73
6.43
4.18
12.51

Skewness

Kurtosis

0.157
0.519
0.335
0.099

- 0.492
- 0.405
0.087

-0.568

GO - Goal Orientation
ASE - Academic Self-Efficacy
AHS - Academic Help-Seeking
Ach- Achievement
Results of the study showed that mastery goal orientation was positively
correlated with academic self-efficacy and academic help-seeking behaviour (r = .090
and .091 respectively, p0.05). The relationship between performance goal
orientation and academic self-efficacy was positive and significant (r = .119, p0.01)
but negatively correlated with academic help-seeking behaviour (r = -.065, p0.05).
Mastery and performance goal orientation were positively correlated to achievement
(r = .138, p0.01and r = .098, p0.05 respectively). On the other hand, academic selfefficacy was positively and significantly correlated to academic help-seeking
behaviour and achievement (r = .135, p0.01 and r = .22, p0.01 respectively) and
academic help-seeking behaviour was also positively and significantly correlated to
achievement (r = .27, p0.01). It was also analyzed that 36.9% of the variance caused
by locality and academic self-efficacy on mastery goal orientation approach, 29.2% of
the variance caused by locality, academic self-efficacy and type of school on
performance goal orientation approach, 37.2% of the variance by locality and
academic help-seeking on mastery goal orientation approach, 25.3% of the variance
caused by the locality alone on performance goal orientation approach, 35.9% of the
variance caused by achievement, gender, type of the school and locality on mastery

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Structural Equation Model Reviewing Relationships Among Goal Orientation, Academic

Self-Efficacy, Academic Help-Seeking Behaviour and Achievement

goal orientation approach and 25.3% of the variance caused alone by locality on
performance goal orientation approach.
In the present study, the relationship of goal orientation with academic selfefficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour and achievement was investigated and the
impact of academic self-efficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour and achievement
on goal orientation and its approaches was studied. The structural equation model for
goal orientation, academic self-efficacy, academic help-seeking behaviour and
achievement among secondary school students on the basis of causal relationships
was developed.

From the goodness of fit indices it can be concluded that the values of CFI
(0.829), IFI (0.814) and NNFI or TLI (0.849) somewhat lower than very good model
fit which indicated that model was permissible. Moreover, badness of fit indices were
also computed i.e. value of chi-square was (2.386) and RMSEA value was (0.024)
and these values were lower than the given values which meant that the model was
showing lower badness of fit indices which indicated that the model is good and
permissible fit into recommended values (Kline, 2010).

FINDINGS OF THE STUDY
This present study contributed to our understanding of how perceived goal orientation
approaches may relate to secondary school students academic self-efficacy, academic
help-seeking behaviour and achievement. Academic self-efficacy tend to be
significantly and positively related to mastery and performance goal orientation and
its approaches i.e. mastery approach and mastery avoidance, performance approach
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Prof. Hemant Lata Sharma and Gunjan Nasa
and performance avoidance. Students who feel more efficacious about their
schoolwork are more likely to endorse mastery oriented goals and perceive the
learning environment as accentuating task goals. Students adopting performance goal
orientation lay emphasis on obtaining better grades and have beliefs in their abilities
compared to other students' abilities. Academic help-seeking behaviour significantly
and positively correlated with mastery goal orientation. Students adopting mastery
goal orientation focus more on learning tasks, more self-efficacious beliefs, more
willing to attempt challenging tasks and more expected to seek help. Mastery-oriented
students have more strategies in their repertoire for getting help than the performance
oriented students. But there was a negative correlation between the approaches of
performance goal orientation and academic help-seeking behaviour of the secondary
school students. Performance goal orientation and academic help-seeking behaviour
are often unrelated and performance oriented students either avoid seeking help or
seek immediate help. Mastery and performance goal orientation approaches were
significantly and positively correlated with achievement. Mastery oriented students
have belief in themselves and know very well that they can and they have the ability
to overcome any kind of challenge. They do not give up straightforwardly when a
learning task challenge them and accept it in a positive way to advance their
achievement. Performance goal oriented students take challenges as a chance for the
ability judgment. These individuals are more capable in easier tasks which allow them
to achieve success and stay away from difficult challenges from the fear of failure. A
significant and positive correlation was found between academic self-efficacy,
academic help-seeking behaviour and achievement. Self-efficacy predicts academic
performance better than skills alone and it directly influences achievement through
cognition. Help-seeking is an active approach that serves as an assistance to
accomplishing academic success in the face of difficult or challenging tasks.
Academic self-efficacy was significantly and positively correlated with academic
help-seeking behaviour. It shows that self-efficacious students seek help easily and at

the right time but sometimes less efficacious students feel hesitation when they need
help.

CONCLUSION
From this study, it can be concluded that now-a-days goal oriented perspective is very
important to decide about the goals which students want to achieve and self-efficacy
helps them to understand those goals by providing appropriate motivation and
encouragement to lead further by having beliefs in themselves. The results showed a
positive and significant relationship between goal orientation and self-efficacy and
this helps in determining the techniques and strategies designed to improve the
performance of the students. Academic help-seeking behaviour also plays an effective
role in taking decision about the importance of help-seeking. When an individual
moves towards a goal, he definitely needs a helping hand to guide him in a proper
way that is the role help-seeking plays. On the basis of this study, it can be conclude
that mastery oriented students seek help in a positive manner instead of performance
oriented. In the last, all the variables studied here is becoming that aspect for oneself
which cannot be neglected and take an individual in a right way with a proper track.

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Structural Equation Model Reviewing Relationships Among Goal Orientation, Academic
Self-Efficacy, Academic Help-Seeking Behaviour and Achievement

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