The effect of perfectionism on academic efficacy as mediated by achievement goals

• Main Authors: De Leon, June Rivera, Firmante, Maria Cristina M., Nicasio, Marissa
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: Perfectionism (Personality trait); Academic achievement; Prediction of scholastic success; Educational Psychology; Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/5861
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study provides empirical support on the effect of perfectionism on academic efficacy as mediated by achievement goals. College students (N=300) from different universities participated in answering the Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APS-R; Slaney, Rice, Moble, Trippi, & Ashby, 2001) and subscales of the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scale (PALS; Midgely, et. Al., 2001). This mediation model was tested using structural equations modeling (SEM). The framework tested had an adequate goodness of fit (RMS=0.059, Streiger-Lind RMSEA index = 0.055, PGI=0.915; and adjusted PGI=0.881). There were direct effect between perfectionism and academic efficacy; the direct effect between college students’ perfectionism and their achievement goals; and the direct effect between college students’ achievement goals and academic efficacy. The results revealed that adaptive perfectionism correlated with the mastery goals and academic efficacy, whereas the maladaptive perfectionism has direct effects to performance approach and performance avoidance. In testing the mediation, the path indicates that achievement goals did not mediate the effect of perfectionism on academic efficacy. From the path analysis, adaptive perfectionism had significant direct effects on mastery goal and academic efficacy. However, the effect of mastery goal to academic efficacy was not significant.