Genetic and Environmental Influences on Achievement Goals Shift with Age

As students move through the educational system, endorsement of achievement motivation tends to decline, which could have socioeconomic ramifications. In particular, students’ achievement goal orientation (AGO), including... [ view full abstract ]

As students move through the educational system, endorsement of achievement motivation tends to decline, which could have socioeconomic ramifications. In particular, students’ achievement goal orientation (AGO), including motivation to learn for the sake of learning (i.e., mastery goal orientation), to learn for the sake of demonstrating proficiency to others (i.e., performance approach goal orientation), and to prevent showing incompetence on tasks (i.e., performance avoidance goal orientation), predicts academic outcomes. Concerningly, both mastery goal orientation and performance approach goal orientation decline substantially as students mature. Little is known concerning whether these mean-level trends are coupled with shifts in the genetic and environmental influences on motivation. It is possible that students are differentially sensitive to their genetically influenced psychological characteristics or aspects of their environment during the early school years compared to later. Using a cross-sectional, diverse population-based sample of twin pairs (N=734 pairs, ages approximately 8 to 18 years), we estimated age-trends in genetic and environmental influences on the above three domains of AGO. We replicate mean-level decreases in mean-levels of AGO. Turning toward variance, we find fairly similar levels of genetic and environmental influences on performance orientations across the age range. In contrast, genetic influences on mastery goal orientation are minimal at early ages, increase substantially through 11^th grade, and then decrease fairly quickly over the final year of formal education. The peak in genetic variance during 11^th grade corresponds to a period that is known for heightened pressure to graduate and prepare for the post-high school (e.g., college) transition. We track this trend in relation to child personality, cognitive ability, and inputs from peers, parents, and teachers. Our results demonstrate the developmental complexity of child academic motivation.