Mature age students in an "enabling" course at university: Their achievement goals, beliefs about learning, confidence, verbal ability, course satisfaction, and performance. Jennifer Archer, Sid Bourke, Robert Cantwell Faculty of Education University of Newcastle Australia Paper presented at the combined meeting of the Education Reseach Asssociation (Singapore) and the Australian Association for Research in Education, November 25-29, 1996, Singapore. Abstract Students enrolled in the Open Foundation Course at the University of Newcastle in 1995 participated in a study which examined their psychological orientations to learning, their verbal ability, and their end-of-year grades. What do they want to achieve? What are their beliefs about the way academic work should be approached? How confident are they in their ability to cope with university life and with establishing a career at the end of their studies? How do they respond to the Open Foundation course? How much ability (in terms of logical reasoning) do they have, and how do they fare academically at the end of the course? A total of 223 students responded. Preliminary analyses suggest differing "profiles" of students in terms of these characteristics. Of particular interest were the relationships between students' achievement goals and their beliefs about regulating their study strategies. The Open Foundation Course at the University of Newcastle The Open Foundation Course (OFC) at the University of Newcastle is a one-year program of study for mature-aged (over 20 years) students who are seeking entry to university study outside of the "normal" entry through performance on end-of-highschool examinations. That is, the OFC fulfils the matriculation requirement for mature age entry to degree courses in most faculties of the University (Collins & Penglase, 1991; Penglase & Collins, 1995). Since its beginning in 1974 with 40 students, the OFC has expanded each year. In 1995, approximately 1500 students enrolled in the Open Foundation course at the University of Newcastle (at the Callaghan campus and the Central Coast campus). Approximately 500 students completed the course. The OFC is offered in two ways: as a part-time course running throughout the academic year; or as a full-time course undertaken during the second semester. These two options differ only in the number of subjects offered. The choice of subjects in the part-time mode is quite wide (up to 20 subjects), while there are fewer subjects offered in the full-time mode because of smaller numbers of students. Anyone over 20 years of age and willing to pay the fee may enrol. There are no prerequisites and no questions are asked about previous academic achievement. The student selects two subjects, each involving 54 hours of class time (part-time course) or 70 hours (full-time course). A wide array of subjects are offered, representing the liberal arts/humanities/social sciences disciplines, and the science/mathematics disciplines (for example, Australian History, Linguistics, Basic Quantitative Studies, English Literature, Social Enquiry, Earth Science, Physics, Basic Mathematics, Classical Studies, and Japanese Language and Culture). Drop-out rates tend to vary from 30% to 40%, although some of these will re-enrol in a subsequent year (in 1995 there was a larger than average enrolment and drop-out because the usual entry fee was dropped). Of those who complete their final examinations, roughly 95% are successful and thus are eligible to be offered a place in the subsequent round of offers in undergraduate degree programs. To be successful in the OFC, students must achieve above 50% of the marks in both subjects they are undertaking (Penglase & Collins, 1995). The present study The present study reports preliminary data on an on-going analysis of the psychological, verbal ability, and achievement profiles of students who undertake the Open Foundation course. What do they want to achieve in this course? What are their beliefs about the way academic work should be approached? How confident are they in their ability to cope with university life and to find employment at the end of their studies? How do they respond to the Open Foundation course? What grades are they achieving? How much ability do they have to reason logically? Of particular interest in the present study is the relationship between students' achievement goals and their beliefs about the need for, and the appropriate use of, self-regulatory strategies to complete their work. Are students whose goal is to understand subject matter deeply more likely to report using a flexible, adaptive approach to completing their work? What are the self-regulatory beliefs of students whose goal is to do better than their peers? What are the self-regulatory beliefs of students who want to get through their work with as little effort as possible? What sort of achievement goal would be held by students who are confused and uncertain about completing their work? In addition, how do these psychological orientations fit with students' confidence in coping with life at university and a future career, their reaction to the Open Foundation course, their ability to reason in a logical manner, and the grades they received at the end of the course? The following sections supply more detail about achievement goals and beliefs about self-regulatory control. Achievement goals Two types of achievement goals in particular have been proposed (Ames, 1992; Ames & Archer, 1988; Blumenfeld, 1992; Dweck, 1986; Harackiewicz & Elliot, 1993). One has been referred to as a performance (or ego) goal. Those who hold this goal are concerned primarily with demonstrating their ability to others (or if this is not possible, to conceal a perceived lack of ability from others). This is shown to best advantage by outperforming others particularly if success is achieved with little effort. The second goal has been labelled a mastery (or task, or learning) goal. Those who hold this goal want to develop their competence on a task or increase their understanding of a subject. Furthermore, they expect to work hard to achieve this. In addition to performance and mastery goals, a third goal called academic alienation (or work avoidance) has been identified (Archer, 1994; Harackiewicz, Barron & Carter, in preparation; Nicholls, Patashnick, & Nolen, 1985; Duda & Nicholls, 1992). The intent here is not understanding or demonstrating competence to others, but to complete work with the minimum of effort. The desire of the alienated student to exert as little effort as possible should be distinguished from the performance oriented student. For the latter student, success with little apparent effort provides evidence of high ability, or failure with little effort does not provide evidence of low ability. For alienated students, however, their proclaimed lack of effort is not a hedge to conceal a lack of ability. They are not concerned about looking smart or looking stupid in front of their peers. Beliefs about self-regulatory control In recent years much attention has been focused on the metacognitive (or self-regulatory) aspects of learning, that is, students' awareness of themselves as learners and the strategies they select to complete their work (Garner, 1987; Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1993; Winne, 1995; Zimmerman & Pons, 1988). Effective learners possess and use their knowledge about the process of learning, and this allows them to organise, plan, and monitor their learning. For example, a student completing a major assignment may stop every so often to review the work she has done, and if she feels dissatisfied with it, decide to change tack and adopt new work strategies. Knowledge of self-regulatory strategies, though, is not enough in itself. Students also need to know how, when, and where these strategies should be used (Cantwell & Moore, in press; Winne, 1995), what is called conditional knowledge about self-regulation. Research points to differences among students in their knowledge of, and conditional use of, self-regulatory strategies (Cantwell & Moore, in press). In general terms, a distinction has been made between adaptive and maladaptive beliefs about self-regulation. Students with adaptive beliefs understand that they need to be flexible in planning for ways of accomplishing different tasks and in monitoring their thinking about the tasks. That is, methods of study have to be adjusted to meet the demands of particular tasks. Students with maladaptive beliefs may be inflexible in their approach, refusing to adjust their methods of study to suit particular tasks; or students may be confused and uncertain about why and how to adjust their strategies to suit different tasks. Cantwell and Moore (in press) describe these beliefs about self-regulation using the following terms: adaptive, inflexible, and irresolute. Subjects Students enrolled in the Open Foundation course at the Callaghan campus were approached by the researchers towards the end of the second semester, 1995. They were asked to complete a questionnaire in their own time (the contents are detailed below), and to give permission for their academic results to be released to the researchers. The questionnaire was completed by 223 students (67 males, 156 females) with a mean age of 34.4 years and a standard deviation of 10.10. This represented a response rate of 42% Questionnaire In addition to demographic data (sex, age, birth place, highest educational level achieved previously, full-time or part-time work now or previously, marital status, and children), five measures were included in the questionnaire. Career Decision-making scale (Taylor & Betz, 1983) This scale contained 25 items concerning an individual's confidence in making decisions related to university study and selection of a career. The items were measured using a 10 point Likert scale anchored by (0) no confidence to (9) complete confidence. The stem was: How confident would you feel about being able to. Items included identify employers, firms, and institutions relevant to your career possibilities, apply again to universities after being rejected for the first time, resist attempts of family or friends to push you into a career or major area of study you believe is beyond your capabilities, determine what your ideal job would be, find information in the library about occupations you are interested in, and change your major area of study if you did not like your first choice. The Cronbach alpha for the scale was .93. Achievement goal scales (Archer, 1994) These scales were designed to measure three achievement goals: mastery, performance, and alienation. Some items were measured using a 5 point Likert response ranging from (1) not successful at all to (5) very successful; other items used a 5 point Likert scale ranging from (1) not satisfied at all to (5) very satisfied; while other items used a 5 point Likert scale ranging from (1) do not agree at all to (5) strongly agree. Examples of the 8 items comprising the mastery scale include feeling successful When a lecture or tutorial made you think about things, feeling satisfied when you worked on a challenging task or assignment, and feeling satisfied when you were involved totally in something you were doing. Examples of the 8 items comprising the performance scale include feeling successful When you got a higher mark than the other students, When you showed people you were smart, and feeling satisfied When you received recognition or prestige. Examples of the 4 items comprising the alienation scale include feeling successful When you did almost no work and got away with it, When you didn't have to work too hard, and feeling satisfied When you realised you didn't have to prepare for tutorials. The Cronbach alpha for the mastery scale was .78, for the performance scale was .87, and for the alienation scale was .78. The scales correlated in the following manner: mastery - performance, r = .35; mastery - alienation, r = ns; performance - alienation, r = .35. Strategic flexibility scales (Cantwell & Moore, in press) These scales were designed to measure three approaches to or beliefs about self-regulatory control: adaptive, inflexible, and irresolute. All the items were measured using 5 point Likert responses ranging from (1) rarely true of me to (5) always true of me. Examples of the 7 items comprising the adaptive scale include I place a lot of importance on adjusting my study methods to meet the requirements of particular tasks, I find it challenging when the problem or assignment I have been given requires me to find different ways of studying, and Before starting work on a particular problem I like to play with a number of possible ways of attacking it. Examples of the 7 items comprising the inflexible scale include I find that I have one good way of going about completing my assignments, and this is effective nearly all of the time, I prefer to follow my usual methods of studying, even if this isn't exactly what the assignment requires, and Once I have found a satisfying way of approaching my study, I feel it is safest to stick with this method. Examples of the 7 items comprising the irresolute scale include I often find the ideas and methods I come across when preparing an assignment more confusing than helpful, I often find that the hardest part of doing assignments is knowing how to do them rather than knowing what to do, and Although I often understand the information I should include in my assignments, I often have difficulty deciding where and when I should use that information. The Cronbach alpha for the adaptive scale was .72, for the inflexible scale was .82, and for the irresolute scale was .83. The scales correlated in the following manner: adaptive - inflexible, r = -.22; adaptive - irresolute, r = -.30; inflexible - irresolute, r = .23. Logical relationships (Australian Council for Educational Research, 1982) This was a 20 item multiple choice test to measure students' ability to ascertain logical relationships between elements of a statement. Students were asked to insert appropriate joining words in a sentence, to complete analogies, and to show how two sentences were related to each other. An example of an item where the student has to select the word or phrase that best completes the meaning of a sentence: The nomad's tent is very simple in its construction ... easy to erect and dismantle. Respondents had to select among: (A) because it is, (B) even though, (C) and therefore, (D) while also being. An example of an analogy item: Bustle is to briskly just as dawdle is to ... Respondents had to choose among: (A) clumsily, (B) slowly, (C) purposefully, (D) cautiously. An example of relating two sentences: A blanket of thick fog covered the area. Visibility there was almost zero. How are these two sentences related? Respondents had to choose among (A) the two sentences establish a comparison, (B) the second sentence contradicts the first, (C) the first sentence explains the meaning of visibility, (D) the second sentence indicates a direct result of the first. The Cronbach alpha for the scale was .73. It should be noted that students did not do this test under examination conditions. Students completed this in their own time, along with the other parts of the questionnaire. Course Experience Questionnaire (Wilson, Lizzio & Ramsden, 1995) This was a 25 item questionnaire designed to measure students' perceptions of the Open Foundation course in terms of five dimensions: good teaching, clear goals and standards, appropriate workload, appropriate assessment, development of study skills, and an overall rating of satisfaction with the course (one item only). Students responded on a 5 point Likert scale anchored at (1) strongly disagree and (5) strongly agree. Examples of the dimensions include It was easy to know the standard of work expected (clear goals and standards), The teaching staff of this course motivated me to do my best work (good teaching), To do well in this course, all you really needed was a good memory (appropriate assessment, reversed), The work load was too heavy (appropriate workload, reversed), The course helped me to develop the ability to plan my career (study skills), and Overall, I was satisfied with the quality of this course (overall satisfaction, one item only). The Cronbach alphas for the sub-scales were as follows: for good teaching .88; for clear goals and standards .79; for appropriate workload .74; for appropriate assessment .73; and for study skills .76. Academic results Students enrolled in the Open Foundation course were expected to complete two subjects. The grade reported in this paper is an average of their performance (as a mark out of 100) in the two subjects. Analyses involving this measure must be accepted with caution, however, because the results came from a wide variety of subjects (with only a small number of students enrolled in some of those subjects). Also, in the case of failure (scores less than 50%), the actual score was not provided and so a score of 40 was inserted for all failures. Obviously then the scores would not conform to a normal distribution. Results Table 1 provides means and standard deviations for the variables used in the study. For all the measures, except Confidence, Logical Reasoning and Grades, the mean represents a score out of five. For example, for the 8 items comprising the mastery goal scale, the mean in Table 1 is the average of students' responses to all the items in this scale divided by eight. For Confidence, the mean represents a score out of 10. For Logical Reasoning, the mean is a score out of 20, and for Grades, the mean represents the average of two marks out of 100. Looking at the achievement goals, the mean scores for the three scales were quite widely spaced. Most students saw themselves as strongly mastery-oriented: the mean on a five point scale was high and with a relatively small standard deviation. The mean for the performance goal was lower, while the mean for the alienation goal was the lowest of the three. For control beliefs, the mean scores for all three beliefs clustered around the midpoint of the scale with the irreolute scale showing the lowest mean. For students' experiences of the Open Foundation course, all the subscales showed quite positive ratings of the course. The single item rating of overall satisfaction with the course was the highest score. Table 2 provides correlations between the achievement goal scales and the other variables. A mastery goal orientation correlated positively with an adaptive control belief, with confidence, and with the various sub-scales of the course experience questionnaire, particularly with good teaching and the development of study skills. There was a negative correlation with the irresolute control belief, and no correlation with logical reasoning, or with grades. A performance goal orientation also correlated positively with an adaptive control belief and with confidence. There was a negative correlation with the irresolute control belief. There were minor positive correlations between a performance goal and some aspects of the course experience, and with grades. An alienation goal orientation was correlated positively with the inflexible control belief and with confidence. Table 3 provides correlations between the control belief scales and the other variables (other than the goal scales which are shown on Table 2). The adaptive scale was correlated positively with confidence and with some of the course experience sub-scales, particularly the development of study skills. There also was a small negative correlation with the logical reasoning test. For the inflexible scale, there was only one minor negative correlation with the appropriate assessment sub-scale of the course experience. The irresolute scale showed quite strong negative correlations with all the variables (confidence, experience of the course, and grades), except with logical reasoning where there was no significant correlation. There are some other correlations of note which are not shown on the tables. Confidence in coping with university life and beyond was not correlated with grade or with the logical reasoning test. The logical reasoning test was correlated with final grade (r = .34). Grade was correlated with four of the five course experience sub-scales (good teaching, r = .19; clear goals and standards, r = .17; appropriate workload, r = .28; appropriate assessment, r = .26), and with the overall rating (r = .14). Discussion As the results show, only preliminary analyses of the data have been conducted to date. These current data form the initial stage of a larger study of students who enter university life through the Open Foundation course. We are sampling OFC students who now are completing an undergraduate degree, as well as students in the same undergraduate degree who did not enter university through OFC. Because as yet we have no data on students who enter university life through other means, it is not possible to make contrasts between OFC students and other undergraduate students. However, there are some points of interest. The relatively high scores of the OFC students on the mastery goal (see Table 1) fits the pattern noted by other researchers (for a discussion, see Richardson, 1994a, 1994b), that mature-age students tend to adopt a deep approach to study - they are keen to learn and to develop their academic skills. Also, the relatively low scores of the OFC students on the academic alienation goal (see Table 1) makes sense. Although there may be some OFC students who come unwillingly to university because of events such as job redundancy, most mature-age students are not at university to "bludge." In addition, the OFC course at the University of Newcastle has been designed to be welcoming to students, to provide encouragement and help when students request it (Penglase & Collins, 1995). Although situational influences on students' motivation have not been the focus of this study, it seems unlikely that any academic alienation displayed by students is the result of poor treatment by OFC staff. Inspection of the correlations among the variables suggests five "profiles" of students displaying a particular array of characteristics. Obviously further analyses are required before we can advance these in anything but a speculative manner. Profile 1 The first group of students are mastery oriented (I want to understand my work); they indicate a resourceful, adaptive approach to completing their work (I know I have to adjust my strategies to fit the demands of particular tasks) ; they are confident in their ability to cope with life in university and in getting a job at the end of their studies; and they respond enthusiastically to the Open Foundation course, especially the good teaching and the opportunity to learn effective study strategies. Profile 2 The second group of students in many ways resembles the first group. They are mastery oriented, adaptive in their approach to study, confident in their ability to cope with study and life after university, and respond well to the Open Foundation course. In addition, these students hold a second achievement goal. Not only do they want to understand their work, they also want to perform better at it than their peers, that is, a performance goal orientation. It will be recalled that there was a significant positive correlation between these two goal orientations (r = .35). Also, this group may perform better than average academically - there is slight positive correlation between a performance goal and academic performance. Profile 3 The third group of students are performance oriented (I want to do better than other students); they indicate a resourceful, adaptive approach to completing their work; they are confident in their ability to cope with university study and life after university; but, unlike the first two groups, they are less enthusiastic about the Open Foundation course. In addition, there is a slight positive correlation with their academic performance. Profile 4 The fourth group of students displays an irresolute approach to their work (I know I should be adaptive and resourceful in my study strategies, but I don't know how to do it); they lack confidence in their ability to cope with study and life after university; they are unhappy with their experience of the Open Foundation course; and perform poorly in their academic work. Profile 5 The fifth group of students is the most difficult to justify with the current data, but we think there are some interesting patterns that should be investigated further. These students appear academically alienated (I want to get away with doing as little as possible but still get passing grades), and they use a rigid, inflexible approach to completing their work (I prefer to use the same strategies for all my academic work, regardless of the special demands of individual tasks). It may be that two types of student fit the category of alienated: the first group may be those who really have no interest in academic work and who are "going through the motions" because their real interests lie elsewhere; but the second group may be those who have realised that they are not coping well with their studies (because of a perceived lack of ability or competing commitments), have little chance of doing well, and so "fall back" to the position of at least I'll try to pass my subjects. Profiles 1 and 2 obviously display positive psychological characteristics: keen to learn, knowledgeable (at least by self-report) about effective ways of learning, enthusiastic, confident, and open to new experiences. It would be desirable of course if these characteristics were linked with superior academic performance, but in these data they are not, at least not strongly. A couple of points can be made about this. Grades, particularly those generated on a rather ad hoc basis by teachers, may not be very valid or reliable (Beckwith, 1991; Trigwell & Prosser, 1991). Meyer, Parsons & Dunne (1990, p.83) refer to the "capricious nature" of most classroom assessment as measures of learning outcomes. The second point is that it is encouraging to see students who may not be among the highest performers in the class displaying a positive approach to learning. Ames (1992) argues that motivation too often is viewed solely in relation to academic achievement. Rather the focus should be on "the ways students view thamselves in relation to the task, engage in the process of learning, and then respond to the learning activities and situation" (p. 268). Students with a desire to understand, a belief in the efficacy of hard work. and a willingness to find effective ways of accomplishing tasks are likely to become lifelong learners. Students' endorsement of both mastery and performance goals is receiving considerable attention (Ames & Archer, 1988; Archer, 1994; Harackiewicz et al., in preparation; Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1987; Meece & Holt, 1993). There is evidence that, in the case of dual goals, a mastery orientation may be more salient to students than a performance orientation. For example, in the Jagacinski and Nicholls' (1987) study, students were asked to think of activities they did for enjoyment (a mastery orientation). Neither did students' feelings of pride in the activity nor their sense of competence diminish when they were told that other students completed the same activity with less effort (a cue to adopt a performance orientation). That is, a mastery motivation may contribute to what Dweck (1986) calls an adaptive approach to learning (in terms of a positive attitude, choice of challenging tasks, and use of effective study strategies), even when students also exhibit a performance orientation. Harackiewicz et al. (in preparation), in their study of first year university students, demonstrated that a mastery goal orientation had a positive effect on their interest in the subject they were studying, while a performance goal orientation had a positive effect on the grades they received. There was no effect of a mastery goal on end-of-year grades. The authors argue that it may be beneficial for students to be both mastery-oriented and performance-oriented: the mastery orientation may produce an increased interest in the subject matter, while the performance orientation may produce a focused, well prepared student who performs better than his peers on assignments and examinations. In fact, in the present study, there was a minor link between a performanve goal orientation and final grades. Profile 4 pointed to a group of students with a particularly negative approach to their studies: uncertain about how to do their work, lacking in confidence in themselves, dissatisfied with the Open Foundation course, and performing poorly academically. In this study, the irresolute control measure emerges as a quite powerful predictor of poor academic performance, a similar finding to that of Cantwell and Moore (in press). Students high on the irresolute scale appear to be aware that they are not coping with their academic work, and that they need to make changes to their work habits, but they are unsure of what they should be doing or how they should be doing it. As Cantwell and Moore point out, this lack of coherence in self-regulation has much in common with Meyer's (1991) description of disintegrated study orchestrations in failing students. The irresolute scale showed negative relationships with a mastery goal and with a performance goal, but no relationship with the alienation goal. The question then arises: what is the achievement goal of these students? Two responses come to mind. First, perhaps the lack of a coherent goal is part of the confusion, indecision, and dissatisfaction displayed by these students (I really don't know why I'm here). Second, it may be that the achievement goals as they were measured in this study are not tapping the goals of these students. Perhaps these students are performance oriented, not in the more positive sense of wanting to look competent in front of their peers and their lecturers, but in the negative sense of not wanting to look incompetent in front of others. Inspection of the items comprising the performance scale in this study shows that all of them refer to demonstrating competence to others (for example, getting a higher mark than other students, showing people that you were smart, accomplished something that others couldn't do, enhanced your status in the group). There were no items that focused on the down side of worrying about doing worse than others, of making a fool of oneself in front of others. Elliot and Harackiewicz (1993) and Elliot and Church (in press) have partitioned the performance goal orientation into independent approach and avoidance motivational orientations. In the Elliot and Harackiewicz study, it was the performance-avoidant students who wanted to avoid failure who displayed low intrinsic motivation. In the Elliot and Church study, the performance-avoidant students displayed less intrinsic motivation than other students and performed more poorly. Examples of performance-avoidance items used in the Elliot and Church study include: I often think to myself "What if I do badly in this class?"; I just want to avoid doing poorly in this class; I'm afraid that if I ask my teaching assistant or instructor a "dumb" question, they might think I'm not very smart; My fear of performing poorly in this class is often what motivates me. In future studies the inclusion of items like these may show connections between a performance-avoidant motivational goal and irresolute approaches to self-regulation. In conclusion, this study has generated some useful preliminary data on the nature of students enrolled in the Open Foundation Course at the University of Newcastle. Of particular interest is the linking of achievement goals with beliefs about self-regulation in completing academic tasks. Both mastery-oriented and performance-oriented students indicated an adaptive approach to self-regulation, that is, they knew they had to be flexible, adjusting their strategies to meet the demands of individual tasks. Alienated students were more likely to display a maladaptive, inflexible approach to self-regulation, that is, using one set of strategies regardless of the requirements of the task. Students displaying a maladaptive, irresolute approach to self-regulation (they know their current strategies were not working, but they were not sure how to change them for more effective ones) did not endorse an achievement goal. For these students, it may be that they do not hold a coherent achievement goal. Alternatively, it may be that they are performance-oriented students whose goal is to avoid looking incompetent in front of others, a facet of performance orientation not measured effectively in this study. References Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 261-271. Ames, C., & Archer, J. (1988). Achievement goals in the classroom: Student learning strategies and motivation processes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 260-267. Archer, J. (1994). Achievement goals as a measure of motivation in university students. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19, 430-446. Australian Council for Educational Research (1982). English Skills Assessment - Logical Relationships. Private Bag 55, Camberwell, Victoria, Australia 3124. Beckwith, J. (1991). Approaches to learning, their context and relation to assessment performance. Higher Education, 22, 17-30. Blumenfeld, P.C. (1992). Classroom learning and motivation: Clarifying and expanding goal theory. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 271-281. Cantwell, R.H., & Moore, P.J. (in press). The development of measures of individual differences in self-regulatory control and their relationship to academic performance. Contemporary Educational Psychology. Collins, J., & Penglase, B. (1991). Offering a second chance: Who accepts? Characteristics of entrants to the University of Newcastle Open Foundation Course. Australian Journal of Adult and Community Education, 31, 189-195. Duda, J.L., & Nicholls, J.G. (1992). Dimensions of achievement motivation in schoolwork and sport. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84, 290-299. Dweck, C.S. (1986). Motivational processes affecting learning. American Psychologist, 41, 1040-1048. Elliot, A.J., & Church, M. (in press). A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement goals. 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Table 1 Descriptive statistics for variables included in the study Table 2Zero-order correlations between achievement goals, control beliefs, confidence, course experience, logical reasoning, and grades. Table 3Zero-order correlations between control beliefs, confidence, course experience, logical reasoning, and grades.