Achievement goals of the social peer-group and the entire class: Relationships with Students' individual achievement goals

The importance of students' goal pursuit is well documented, yet little is known about how motivations of significant peers relate to students' individual goals. Accordingly, we investigated relationships between student's perceptions of peers' goals, peers' reported goals, and individual achievement goals of 472 Israeli high-school students in 26 classrooms. Both goals of the social peer-group (i.e., group of classmates a student spends much time with), and all classmates' goals were related to individual goals. Individual mastery goals had stronger links with social peer-group's mastery goals than with all classmates' mastery goals. Perceived peer goals were significantly related to individual goals after accounting for classmates' and social group's goals, suggesting that both perceived and actual reports are informative, likely targeting different processes of peer-group influence. Simultaneous examination of all classmates' and of particular social groups' goals suggests that focusing on certain groups rather than the entire classroom is beneficial when promoting mastery.