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It is often assumed that students’ personal achievement goals are most beneficial when they match the goal structures of the classroom, but interaction between achievement goals and goal structures is not well researched. In this study, we aim at providing a nuanced picture of the direct, interaction, and nonlinear effects of achievement goals and goal structures on test performance and autonomous motivation. We used multiple linear regressions, including interaction and quadratic terms, in combination with response surface methodology to analyze questionnaire data from students in Grades 6-10. We found no evidence for a general match effect, and only weak indications of interactions between achievement goals and goal structures. Thus, the match between classroom goal structures and students’ personal goals may be less important for students’ motivation and achievement than previously assumed. Still, based on our results we recommend a focus on mastery structures in the classroom.

Research has shown direct and indirect effects of students’ achievement goals and classroom goal structures on school performance and motivation. However, whether, and how, the effects of students’ achievement goals depend on classroom goal structures has not received much attention. Moreover, extant studies have not accounted for nonlinear effects, which may mask matching effects between goals and structures. Our study aims at providing a nuanced picture of the direct, interaction, and nonlinear effects of achievement goals and goal structures on student’s test performance and motivation in chemistry. Multiple linear regression in combination with response surface plots were used in the analysis of questionnaire data from 909 students involved in a cross-sectional survey in Grades 6-10. Results indicate that interactions between goals are more influential on student achievement and motivation than interactions between goals and structures. No evidence for a general matching effect between goals and goal structures was found. Mastery goals were universally beneficial, but in particular when students were low in performance goals and the perceived performance structure was weak. Overall, it seems that the influence of classroom goal structures on the effect of achievement goals may be smaller than previously assumed.

Individual’s beliefs about the nature of knowing and learning have been investigated under the label of epistemic beliefs. Although the area of epistemic beliefs is still growing, only a few studies deal with school children. A valuable research approach in this area is classifying students in more homogeneous groups according as it is done in Latent Profil Analyses. Therefore, we investigated 3088 secondary students across grades 5 to 12 with LTAs. We found three distinctive profiles (‘sophisticated’, ‘evidence-based/dynamic’, ‘multiplist’) according to students’ science-related epistemic beliefs. As a justification for this approach, results show several differences between these profiles regarding school and background variables, cognitive outcomes in general and in science as well as science related motivational characteristics.