Relationship between achievement goal orientations and use of learning strategies

Students' achievement goal orientations, learning strategies, and the relationship between them were identified. One hundred and eighty-nine students enrolled in an undergraduate educational psychology course completed a questionnaire on goal orientations and learning strategies. Results indicated that most of the students were close to mastery orientation and somewhat ego-social. Students used deep cognitive strategies often; they used surface and metacognitive strategies occasionally. Mastery orientation predicts use of deep cognitive and metacognitive strategies; when such an orientation is salient, however, less surface cognitive strategy use is expected. Ego-social orientation predicts surface cognitive strategy use but does not relate to deep and metacognitive strategy use. Work-avoidant orientation negatively correlates with deep cognitive and metacognitive strategy use.