Achievement goals play a principal role in enhancing learning gains and adaptive attitudes. Little is known, however, about changes and/or stability in achievement goals over time. This study focused on the research hypothesis that instructional tasks (e.g., exam, in-class quiz, writing a paper, in-class activates) of a course which are focused on competence influence differentially the adoption of college students’ achievement goals in a real classroom. A total of 186 college students from an introductory educational psychology course participated in this study. All achievement goals had high stability for each instructional task using a differential continuity analytic approach, while mean-level change analyses showed a considerable decline of each individual goal pursuit. Cluster analysis technique, which is a person-centered approach, suggested changes in cluster memberships between the pre- and post-measure of achievement goals. The results and findings of the current study provide important implications for both instructional design in a classroom and research methodologies used to investigate achievement goals.

achievement goals, instructional tasks, cluster analysis