Motivational goal orientations of intellectually gifted achieving and underachieving students in the United Arab Emirates

Albaili, Mohamed A

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between intellectually gifted achieving and underachieving secondary school students on certain motivational goal orientations such as effort, task, competition, power, praise, feedback, token, social concern, and social dependency. A total of 144 selected United Arab Emirates secondary school male students (15-19 years of age) participated in the investigation. Participants were classified into the following two intellectually gifted groups: achieving students (n= 98) and underachieving students (n= 46). The Inventory of School Motivation was used as a measure of the motivational goal orientations. Multivariate analysis of variance results indicated significant differences between the two intellectually gifted groups on Effort, Task, Competition, Feedback, and Social Dependency scales. Further discriminant analysis revealed that Effort, Task, and Competition were the most discriminating variables that separate the intellectually gifted achieving students from their underachieving peers.

The academic underachievement of gifted students is a serious problem that has puzzled educators and researchers for more than five decades. This problem usually begins during the late elementary school years and becomes more evident by secondary and high school (Butler-Por, 1987; McCall, Evahan, & Kratzer, 1992; Peterson & Colangelo, 1996). The gifted underachiever has been viewed as a potential loss and waste to a society. In addition to the social cost, there are personal loss and waste. The underachieving gifted student may perceive himself or herself as inadequate in various kinds of learning experiences, and may develop a negative attitude toward self, school, and learning. Despite widespread interest in and concern about this area, researchers have achieved only limited understanding of this phenomenon (Reis & McCoach, 2000).

Academic underachievement is generally defined as a discrepancy between ability and grades, or between ability and achievement (Butler-Por, 1987; McCall, et al., 1992; Peterson & Colangelo, 1996; Reis & McCoach, 2000; Rimm, 1997; Whitmore, 1980). For the purpose of this study, gifted underachieving students are defined as students who exhibit a significant discrepancy between their potential ability (as measured by a standardized intellectual ability assessment) and achievement performance (as measured by school achievement scores). Additionally, this discrepancy may not be attributed to either learning disabilities or emotional problems. Gifted underachieving students, therefore, are those students who are not performing according to their potential ability in school.

Considerable research has been devoted to exploring personal factors that contribute to academic underachievement among gifted students. It has been suggested that lack of motivation to learn and do well in school is one of the major causes of underachievement in gifted students (Whitmore, 1980). This notion leads us to speculate that gifted underachieving students may experience various forms of motivational problems during their school life.

The importance of motivation in the field of giftedness is well documented. Motivation serves as a vehicle in the definition of giftedness for many theorists. For example, motivation is considered as a catalyst in Gagne's (1995) definition of giftedness and talent, and as one of the six resources in Steinberg and Lubart's (1993) multivariate theory of creative giftedness. Similarly, Feldhusen (1986) included achievement motivation in his conceptualization of giftedness. Task commitment (motivation) was also considered as one of the three components in Renzulli's (1986) three-ring model of giftedness. Further, Clinkenbeard (1994) stated that "motivation is clearly important when considering how to narrow the gap between potential and performance" (p. 187).

In the field of giftedness, researchers have examined various aspects of academic motivation in order to determine their relationships to academic underachievement. One group of researchers focused on the differences in motivational characteristics of gifted and nongifted students. For instance, OlszewskiKubilius, Kulieke, and Krasney (1988) reviewed several studies showing that elementary gifted students generally scored significantly higher on internal locus of control than did the students with whom they were compared. High IQ students tended to score higher on intrinsic motivation and autonomy than did average IQ students, and were more likely to demonstrate positive attributions for success and failure. Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, and Whalen (1993), in a longitudinal study, found that intellectually talented students showed superior intrinsic motivation for reading, thinking, and solitude when compared with average students. Vallerand, Gagne, Senecal, and Pelletier (1994) compared the intrinsic motivation and school competence of gifted and regular elementary school students, and found that gifted students perceived themselves as being more competent and more highly intrinsically motivated toward school activities than did their regular peers. Similarly, Chan (1996) studied the motivational orientation of intellectually gifted students and found that, when compared with average-- achieving students, gifted students had greater confidence in their own personal control over successes or failures in school tasks.

Another group of researchers examined the motivational differences between gifted achieving students and gifted underachieving students. Ford (1993) found that several motivational factors distinguished achieving from underachieving gifted Black students; the achieving group was less concerned with peer pressure and reported high effort and low test anxiety. Underachievers had a more external locus of control; they were more ambivalent about trying hard, and reported a high level of test anxiety compared with their achieving peers.

Vlahovic-Stetic, Vidovic and Arambasic (1999) investigated the motivational characteristics of mathematically gifted high-achieving, gifted underachieving, and nongifted students, and found gifted students differed from their nongifted peers in displaying higher levels of intrinsic motivation toward mathematics, lower mathematical anxiety, lower attribution of success to external factors and efforts, as well as lower attribution of failure to external factors and abilities. However, it was reported that gifted achievers had lower attribution of success to effort than did gifted underachievers and nongifted students. More recently, Lau and Chan (2001) examined and compared the motivational differences among underachievers, high achievers, and low achievers, and found that underachievers had poorer academic self-concept, tended to attribute their failure more to unstable factors, and had lower attainment value when compared with high achievers.

Recent literature on academic achievement motivation has moved toward a broader, more conceptual framework for organizing both cognitive and affective components of motivation orientation (Ames, 1992). One theory that has provided useful ground for research in the field of academic motivation is goal orientation theory. Goal orientations are generally defined as integrated patterns of motivational beliefs that represent different ways of approaching, engaging in, and responding to achievement-related activities (Ames).

Goal orientation theorists have traditionally emphasized two primary types of achievement goal orientations, the goal to develop and improve ability (referred to in this study as mastery goals), and the goal to demonstrate ability and outperform others (referred to in this study as performance goals) (e.g., Ames, 1992; Blumenfeld, 1992; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; McInerney, Roche, McInerney, & Marsh, 1997). This group of researchers claimed that these two goal orientations are not bipolar or mutually exclusive. They pointed to research supporting other goals, more social in nature, such as working to preserve ingroup integrity, interdependence of members, and harmonious relationships. Therefore, the model of McInerney et al. can be viewed as a higher order structure consisting of three general goal dimensions - mastery, performance, and social - each subsuming more specific goal orientations.

Research has shown that the three different types of goal orientation can lead to a wide range of educationally related outcomes. Mastery goals have been linked with a variety of positive outcomes such as adaptive self-seeking (Newman, 1998), academic self-efficacy (Roeser, Midgley, & Urdan, 1996), attribution of success to effort (Ames & Archer, 1988), preference for challenging tasks (Ames & Archer, 1988; Turner, Thorpe, & Meyer, 1998), persistence in the face of difficulty (Elliott & Dweck, 1988), intrinsic interest in learning (Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988), deep processing strategies (Albaili, 1998; Ames & Archer, 1988), and superior academic achievement (Albaili, 1998; Tanaka & Ysmauchi, 2001).

Performance goals have generally been associated with a variety of negative outcomes, such as a reluctance to seek academic assistance (Newman, 1998; Ryan & Pintrich, 1997), cheating (Anderman, Griesinger, & Westerfield, 1998), academic self-handicapping (Anderman et al., 1998; Urdan, Midgley, & Anderman, 1998), withdrawal of effort in the face of failure (Dweck & Leggett, 1998), negative affect following failure (Turner et al., 1998) and shallow processing strategies (Albaili, 1998; Greene & Miller, 1996). However, some research has indicated a positive relationship between performance goals and adaptive learning strategies, persistence and academic performance (Bouffard, Boisvert, Vezeau, & Larouche, 1995; Harackiewiez, Barron, Carter, Lehto, & Elliott, 1997; Meece et al., 1988; Miller, Greene, Montalvo, Bhuvaneswari, & Nichols, 1996).

Although mastery and performance goals have received considerable attention, social goals have also been a subject of investigation for a number of studies. For instance, Wentzel (1991) found that there were also social goals related to school achievement behaviors such as seeing oneself as successful, dependable, wanting to learn new things, and wanting to get things done. Higher achieving students have both higher levels of social responsibility and higher achievement goals than do lower achieving students (Wentzel, 1993). Similarly, Wentzel (1994) reported that students' social goals related positively to peer acceptance, whereas academic responsibility goals related negatively to peer acceptance and positively to acceptance by teachers. Conversely, Guay, Boivin, and Hodges (1999) reported that students affiliated with social goals as a priority tended to receive lower grades and lower achievement test scores.

Dia, Moon, and Feldhusen (1998) discussed the importance of goal theories in understanding the achievement motivation of gifted students. Dia et al. reviewed related research on the effects of goal orientations, and noted limited research with gifted students suggesting an advantage of mastery goal structures over performance structures for gifted or academically talented students. These findings are generally similar to those reported by Ames (1992). However, research regarding gifted and talented students' goal orientations is unclear and less well developed. Dia et al. reported a variety of inconsistent findings that are probably the result of different theoretical foci, methodologies, and operationalization of the concept of "giftedness". McNabb (1997) also discussed the value of conceptualizing gifted students' underachievement in terms of motivational issues and proposed that achievement goals are of great usefulness in assessing various aspects of behaviors exhibited by some gifted underachievers.

In an attempt to address the linkage between goal orientations and underachievement among intellectually gifted students, the aim of the present study was to investigate the differences between intellectually gifted achieving and underachieving students on certain motivational goal orientations assessed by the Inventory of School Motivation. It was hypothesized that there would be significant differences between the two intellectually gifted groups on scales of the Inventory of School Motivation. Moreover, it was predicted that certain motivational scales would be discriminating variables that would separate intellectually gifted achieving students from their underachieving counterparts.

METHOD

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 144 United Arab Emirates secondary school intellectually gifted students participated in the investigation. Their ages ranged from 15-19. Of the 144, there were 56 tenth-graders, 48 eleventh-graders, and 40 twelfth-graders. Participants were drawn from four secondary schools located in the northern part of the United Arab Emirates. All the participants were male, because the schooling system in the United Arab Emirates is not coeducational.

MEASURES

Intellectual ability: Students' general intellectual abilities were assessed by the Emirates version of the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI) (Albaili & AbuHilal, 1993). TONI is a language-free and culture-reduced measure of intellectual functioning which requires abstract/figural problem solving. It is the only standardized intelligence test available in the United Arab Emirates. The test consists of 50 items arranged in order of difficulty. The items contain one or more of the following characteristics: shape, position, direction, rotation, contiguity, shading, size, length, movement, and figural pattern. Each item requires use of one or more of the following rules: simple matching, analogies, addition, subtraction, alteration progressions, and classification. Albaili and Abu-Hilal reported accepted internal consistency reliability coefficients, and reasonable construct validity estimates. The local norms of TONI for groups aged between 8-24 years were established in United Arab Emirates using a representative sample of elementary, preparatory, secondary, and university students (Albaili & Abu-Hilal).

Motivational goal orientations: Students' motivational goal orientations were measured by the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM) (McInerney, Roche, McInerney, & Marsh, 1997). The original form of the ISM was translated into Arabic using independent back translation with a few minor linguistic adjustments. These changes were intended to ensure that the modified statements were readily understandable to respondents. The ISM consists of 56 items that are distributed among 9 scales. The scales represent three major motivational goal orientations: mastery, performance, and social. The number of items and a brief description of each scale are shown in Table 1. Students are required to respond to each item on a Likert-type five-point scale, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The responses to the items were coded so that higher scores reflected higher levels of motivational goal orientations associated with each scale.

McInerney et al. (1997) reported internal consistency (coefficient alpha) for the ISM scales ranging from .62 to .85. Moreover, Mcinerney et al. (1997) established a construct validity of the ISM using both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory analysis. In addition, the present author established satisfactory internal consistency coefficients (coefficient alpha) ranging from .74 to .86 for the ISM scales for the present participants.

PROCEDURES

The present study had two phases. In phase 1, students were administered the Emirates version of the TONI and their academic achievement scores were obtained from the school administration. The Emirates version of the TONI was administered individually by trained school psychologists. Based on students' scores on the intelligence test and their academic achievement scores, students were classified in two intellectually gifted groups.

For the purpose of the present investigation, an intellectually gifted student was defined as a student who obtained an intelligence quotient of 130 or greater on the Emirates version of the TONI. An achieving student was defined as a student who ranked in the top 10% in his class for the last 3 years based on academic achievement scores. An underachieving student was defined as one who ranked in the bottom half of his class for the last 3 years based on academic achievement scores. According to these two criteria, there were 98 intellectually gifted achieving students and 46 intellectually gifted underachieving students. None of the gifted underachieving students had an experience of learning disabilities or emotional problems.

In phase 2, the intellectually gifted students were administered the ISM during a regular class period by their teachers who were briefed on the administration procedures. Standardized instructions were read to the students, and they were told that their responses would be confidential and would be used only for research purposes. An informed consent to participate in the study was obtained for all students in both phases.

ANALYSIS

Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) procedure was performed with the two intellectually gifted groups (gifted achieving and gifted underachieving) as the independent variable and the scores on the ISM scales as the dependent variables. The multivariate procedure allowed examination of the effect of the intellectually gifted groups on all the ISM scales simultaneously, taking into consideration the extent to which the scores of the ISM scales intercorrelate. The MANOVA procedure was followed by a univariate ANOVA procedure to determine the effect of the two intellectually gifted groups on each ISM scale. Furthermore, a direct-entry model of discriminant analysis was used to determine which of the ISM scales, as the independent variables, best separated intellectually gifted achieving students from their underachieving peers.

RESULTS

Multivariate analysis of variance procedure was conducted to compare intellectually gifted achieving and underachieving students in terms of their scores on the ISM. A significant multivariate effect on all ISM scales combined was observed (F(9,134) = 5.10, p

The results of the analyses revealed that intellectually gifted achieving students scored significantly higher on Effort, Task, and Competition scales than did intellectually gifted underachieving students. On the other hand, the results showed that intellectually gifted underachieving students scored significantly higher on Feedback and Social Dependency scales than did intellectually gifted achieving students.

Considering the significant differences found between intellectually gifted achieving students and their underachieving counterparts on certain ISM scales, a direct-entry model of discriminant analysis was performed to identify how the set of the ISM variables, when used simultaneously, differentiated the two groups of intellectually gifted students. The model produced a Wilk's lambda (df = 9, 134) = .75 which was statistically significant at p

DISCUSSION

This study sought to examine differences between intellectually gifted achieving and underachieving secondary schools students on motivational goal orientations in the United Arab Emirates. The results showed that the intellectually gifted achieving students were more oriented toward effort, task, and competition than were intellectually gifted underachieving students, whereas the intellectually gifted underachieving students were more oriented toward verbal feedback and social dependency for peers than were intellectually gifted achieving students. These results are consistent with those reported by Ford (1993), Lau and Chan (2001), Olszewski-Kubilius et al. (1988), and Vallerand et al. (1994), who observed significant differences between gifted achieving and underachieving students on numerous motivational characteristics such as self-concept, intrinsic motivation, attribution, locus of control, competence, confidence, and effort.

The results generally show that intellectually gifted achieving students tended to adapt mastery goal orientations demonstrated by both effort and task goals, whereas their underachieving peers were accustomed to both performance and social goal orientations represented by feedback and social dependency goals, respectively. Thus, consistent with trends in existing research, mastery goal orientation practices (e.g., an emphasis on effort, task, and improvement) are associated with a variety of positive academic outcomes as opposed to the negative academic outcomes associated with both performance goal orientation practices (e.g., one's ability, feedback, and sense of self-worth) and social goal orientation practices (e.g., affiliation, and social relatedness) (Albaili, 1998; Ames, 1992; Blumenfeld, 1992; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Guay et al., 1999; McInerney et al. 1997). Accordingly, gifted students adapting positive mastery goal orientations are more likely to succeed in school and be considered as highly achieving students.

Unexpectedly, intellectually gifted achieving students surpassed their underachieving counterparts in one of the performance goal orientation scales; they tended to be more competitive with their peers than were the underachieving students. This result would be explained in the light of the nature and the practices of the educational system in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE educational system is considered as an individualized student-based system that puts great emphasis on competition as a major criterion for academic success. Most of the educational activities and practices are related to competitive behavior and students are encouraged to be involved in such activities to demonstrate their competitive behavior as opposed to the cooperative manners. Students are also rewarded for their competitiveness by getting higher grades and gaining academic recognition.

The results also show that intellectually gifted underachieving students were oriented toward grades and verbal feedback offered by teachers and parents when dealing with their school work. They were also socially dependent on peer relations in helping them to accomplish their academic responsibilities. This result challenges the notion that social goals would contribute to academic achievement because they induce students to adopt their teachers' values and pursue academic tasks they would otherwise avoid (Wentzel, 1999). Reliance on such performance and social goals will not guarantee success for students in school or in their pursuit of academic improvement; and hence they may become underachievers. These results are consistent with Whitmore's (1980) view that suggested that underachievers do not find academic pursuits rewarding, and that these students therefore avoid them, redirecting their energy to more rewarding behaviors such as social or athletic activities. Subsequent discriminant analysis indicated that Effort, Task, and Competition were the most powerful factors that distinguish intellectually gifted achieving students from their underachieving peers. In addition, the combination of the motivational goal orientation factors allowed us to correctly classify nearly 78% of the sample as either intellectually gifted achieving or underachieving learners. Intellectually gifted achieving students appeared to possess a great willingness to put a considerable effort into their school work, engaging solely in active task orientation, and adapting competitive activities to maintain their superior performance compared with the intellectually gifted underachieving students. These results are similar to those reported by Ford (1993), Vlahovic-Stetic et al. (1999), and Lau and Chan (2001), who reported that motivational factors were important variables in distinguishing gifted achievers from gifted underachievers. It is clear that when students value a task, they will be more likely to engage in it, expend more effort on it, and do better at it, and hence they are more likely to be achievers (Wigfield, 1994). Believing in the importance of the task therefore increases students' efforts toward achievement goal orientation and motivation.

Findings with these patterns would lend support to the claim that motivational goal orientations are important factors contributing to the underachievement of intellectually gifted students. Therefore, such factors should be the focus of any intervention programs directed to reversing the academic underachievement pattern among gifted students.

Previous intervention programs have placed a considerable emphasis on modifying self-concept, recognizing students' strengths, reinforcing students' efforts, and valuing their interests in dealing with the phenomenon of underachievement (Baum, Renzuli, & Herbert, 1995; Hishinuma, 1996; Wilson, 1986). Future intervention programs for gifted underachieving students should, therefore, focus on helping students to work on mastery goal setting, set up realistic expectations, build up their self-confidence, understand their potentialities, and should encourage them to work hard and make greater effort, participate in rewarded competition, and accept responsibility for learning and achievement outcomes. Once gifted underachieving students are encouraged and motivated, they may succeed in reversing this underachievement. It is important that educators and policy makers identify gifted underachieving students and use appropriate programs and strategies to help them reverse the underachievement pattern.

In conclusion, the various findings of this investigation suggest a plausible link between the motivational goal orientations and underachievement of intellectually gifted students. Further research should continue to explore school and environmental factors that are related to the academic achievement and underachievement of gifted students. Additionally, it would be interesting to compare the scores of gifted achieving and gifted underachieving students to those of nongifted achieving and nongifted underachieving students to determine whether the same differences may exist in both gifted and nongifted populations. Future research should also begin to investigate the causal relationships between motivational goal orientations and academic achievement by collecting longitudinal data on gifted achieving and underachieving students as they progress through secondary school.

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MOHAMED A. ALBAILI

United Arab Emirates University

Mohamed A. Albaili, Department of Psychology, United Arab Emirates University, Khorfakkan, United Arab Emirates.

Appreciation is due to reviewers, including Dr. Maher Abu Hilal, Chairman, Department of Psychology, UAE University, PO Box 17771, Al-Ain, UAE, Dr. Michael H. Figler, Department of Psychology, Towson University, Towson, MD 21252, USA, Dr. Shi Jiannong, Professor of Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 10A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China and Dr. Greg Montalvo, Professor of Educational Psychology, Western Illinois University, Hacomb, IL 61455, USA.

Please address correspondence and reprint requests to Mohamed A. Albaili, Department of Psychology, United Arab Emirates University, PO. Box 10860, Khorfakkan, United Arab Emirates. Email:

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