Structural relations among implicit theories, achievement goals, and performance in writing

Abstract

Implicit theories have important implications for students' achievement goals and academic achievement. The Writer(s)-within-community model by Graham (2018) postulates that motivational beliefs stored in the longterm memory, such as implicit theories and achievement goals, influence how one approaches a writing task. Notwithstanding, few empirical studies examined the relations among implicit theories, achievement goals, and writing performance. In this study, we sought to examine the structural relations among implicit theories, achievement goals, and writing performance of Portuguese students in grades 5 to 8 (Mage =11.80, SD = 1.5). In addition, we aimed to test whether the relations among implicit theories, achievement goals, and writing performance varied across two text genres, and for girls and boys. Our results showed that more incremental theories in writing were associated with a greater pursuit of mastery goals as well as with higher text quality. Moreover, a greater endorsement of mastery goals was associated with higher text quality, whereas a greater adoption of performance-approach goals was linked to lower text quality. These relations remained stable for girls and boys and across narrative and opinion texts. Overall, these findings confirm the pivotal role of motivation-related variables in predicting students' writing performance.