A Theoretical Model of the Antecedents of Educational Goal Commitment
Keywords:
theoretical model, antecedents, educational goal, commitmentAbstract
The transition from high school to college is a key point in students’ educational route. During this transition, the ability to formulate an educational goal and the will to actively engage with this goal are assumed to lead to favorable academic outcomes. However, students differ in their commitment to their educational goal, which may translate into differences in goal implementation. How can we explain such differences? A theoretical model of the factors influencing students’ commitment to their educational goal is proposed. This model is composed of two proximal antecedents—goal importance and expectancy of goal achievement—and two distal antecedents—goal abstraction and goal integration. The proximal antecedents are mainly based on the expectancy-value framework (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002), and the distal antecedents on the assumptions relative to the hierarchical goal structure (Carver & Scheier, 1998).
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