Perfectionism and achievement goal orientations in adolescent school students

Perfectionism has been shown to predict individual differences in achievement goal orientations in university students, but research on perfectionism and goal orientations in school students is still very limited. Investigating 584 adolescent school students in a cross-sectional correlational design, the present study examined how self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism predicted students’ goal orientations. Multiple regression analyses showed that, when the overlap between the different goal orientations was controlled for, self-oriented perfectionism positively predicted mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goal orientations whereas socially prescribed perfectionism positively predicted performance-approach orientation. The present findings indicate that perfectionism predicts individual differences in adolescent school students’ achievement goal orientations, but different forms of perfectionism are associated with different patterns of goal orientations.