LEARNERS' GOAL ORIENTATION AS A FACTOR OF SUCCESSFUL ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN ONLINE LEARNING EXPERIENCES

This study investigated goal orientation and its relationship to academic performance in online learning environments. The participants (n=106) were students enrolled in courses offered by a community college in the United States of America. Data was collected using eight items from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) and other items relevant to demographic data collection. The eight items addressed two subscales (categories) relevant to goal orientation: extrinsic goal orientation and intrinsic goal orientation. Data analysis included factor analysis, multivariate analysis of variance, and regression analysis. This study reports intrinsic goal orientation (p=.0373) is significant to successful academic performance in an online learning environment where extrinsic goal orientation (p=.8893) is not contributory to successful academic performance in an online learning environment. The framework of this study was based on social cognitive theory.