The Relatonship Between Social Anxiety and School Motivation in Sixth-Grade Students
Abstract
Social anxiety disorder often develops in early adolescence. The increase in anxiety during this time is associated with many internal and external factors, including puberty and the transition to middle school. Additionally, many sixth-grade students begin to see a decline in overall academic achievement and success. This study examined the relationship between social anxiety severity and goal orientation: mastery goals, performance-avoidance goals, and performance-approach goals. Sixth grade students were recruited from a suburban middle school outside of New York City. Participants, consisting of 77 sixth-grade students, completed self-report measures related to social anxiety and a self-report measure related to goal orientation. Results of this study indicated that students with moderate to high social anxiety are statistically significantly more likely to endorse both performance-avoidance goals and performance-approach goals than students with low to no social anxiety. However, no significant differences were found in mastery goal endorsement between students with moderate to high levels of social anxiety and low to no social anxiety. Notable is that most students reported high levels of mastery goals. Finally, there were no statistically significant gender differences in the relationship between social anxiety severity and goal orientation. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.
Subject Area
Social psychology|Clinical psychology
Recommended Citation
Schwartz, Marlee, "The Relatonship Between Social Anxiety and School Motivation in Sixth-Grade Students" (2017). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI10271363.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI10271363
