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The relationship between achievement goals and scholastic achievement in dental students: the mediating effect of
Kaiqi Peng1, Yonglin Feng2,3, Shanshan Liu4
1Hospital of Stomatology, Guanghua School of Stomatology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Background:
Scholastic achievement during college is important for the professional careers of dental students. Previous studies have reported that learning engagement may be the mediator between achievement goals and scholastic achievement. This study aims to examine whether learning engagement mediated the relationship between achievement goals and scholastic achievement.
Methods:
This study included dental students from two universities in China. This was a quantitative, cross-sectional study. The students were invited to complete an online questionnaire. A total of 679 students participated in the study. The questionnaire consisted of four main parts: demographic characteristics, an achievement goals scale, a learning engagement scale, and a scholastic achievement scale. We conducted a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlation analysis using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 26.0 software. Mplus 8.3 was used to examine the potential mediating effect of learning engagement in a structural equation model.
Results:
Findings demonstrated that the associations between achievement goals and the scholastic achievement of dental students were as follows: performance-approach goals (β = 0.15, p < 0.05), mastery-approach goals (β = 0.73, p < 0.001), performance-avoidance goals (β = -0.03, p > 0.05), and mastery-avoidance goals (β = -0.10, p < 0.05). Learning engagement played a mediating role in the relationship between the three achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-avoidance, and mastery-avoidance goals) and scholastic achievement. Learning engagement did not mediate the relationship between performance-approach goals and scholastic achievement.
Conclusion:
Learning engagement mediated the relationship between achievement goals and scholastic achievement. These findings suggest that dental educators should prioritize cultivating achievement goals among students and enhancing learning engagement to improve professional outcomes.
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