Perceived Classroom Environment, Sociodemographic Background, and Achievement Goals as Predictors of Students’ Academic Striving

Abstract

Classroom learning environment is considered to create the framework within which students are striving for success and research has shown that a competitive learning environment is less adaptive than a classroom environment where strivings for mastery and learning are encouraged. Yet, this core finding has not been extensively tested in Turkey where there is a lot of competition in the high school classroom. The main purpose of this thesis was to investigate perceived mastery versus competitive learning environment relates to better learning strategies; also, whether achievement goals would mediate the relation between perceived classroom goal structures and socioeconomic status of family on the one hand and academic achievement and learning striving on the other hand. To address these questions, a cross-sectional design was used in which participants were 369 students (181 males; 178 females; 10 students did not report their gender) from high school in Ankara, Turkey. Hierarchical re