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Gender differences in students' social goals.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Social goals have been linked to academic motivation and performance in college students. The present article examines gender differences in college students' social goals, as some evidence exists that males and females will differ in their social goals. A recent model of social goals is addressed in this article. The authors found that males tended to pursue power goals more than females, while females tended to pursue social responsibility goals more than males.

Introduction

Some reasons for students' behaviors are socially oriented. Social-academic goals are "cognitive representations of desired social outcomes that have an impact in academics" (McCollum, 2006, p. 17). The social aspects of academics (e.g., interacting with other students) are part of students' motivations. Putting motivation in terms of goals, social goals account for some variation in academic achievement (e.g., Anderman & Anderman, 1999; McCollum, 2005, 2006). Social goal pursuit is an essential part of academic achievement.

Social Goals

Through research it is clear that students frequently have goals for such things as intimacy, responsibility, relationships, or fun (Sanderson, Rahm, Beigbeder & Metts, 2005; Wentzel, 2001). These goals are social goals. Evidence suggests that mutual pursuit of social and achievement goals is necessary to perform well academically (e.g., Covington, 2000). The importance of social goal pursuit for academic success is especially prevalent in cooperative learning situations (Hijzen, Boekaerts, & Vedder, 2006). The evidence, addressed below, suggests that developing an understanding of students' social goals can help in understanding students' academic outcomes (e.g., GPA).

To understand better the usefulness of social goals in predicting academic achievement there is a need to develop knowledge of social goals. In Wentzel's (1994) research, prosocial goals (e.g., helping peers with social or academic issues) and social responsibility goals (e.g., following classroom rules, keeping promises and commitments) were moderately to highly correlated with several other variables, such as effort (r = .28), mastery goals (r = .40), and self-efficacy (r = .41). In addition, GPA had a moderate relationship with prosocial (r = .16) and social responsibility (r = . 18) goals in middle schoolers. These correlations describe the predictive worth of prosocial and social responsibility goals as measured by Wentzel in a young adolescent population. There are limitations to Wentzel's social goals. Urdan and Maehr (1995) pointed out that her work measured only two dimensions of social goals and suggested the further development of potential dimensions of social goals. Since Wentzel's seminal work, additional researchers have expanded the dimensions of social goals.

Miller et al. (1996) measured different social goal constructs than Wentzel and examined academic outcome correlates of social goals. Included in their research were goals of: trying to please others and trying to be socially responsible. Based on factor analytic findings, the researchers labeled...

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