Elsevier

Journal of Adolescence

Volume 25, Issue 1, February 2002, Pages 31-46
Journal of Adolescence

Regular Article
Achievement strategies at school: types and correlates

https://doi.org/10.1006/jado.2001.0447Get rights and content

Abstract

In this study we made an effort to identify the kinds of strategies adolescents deploy in achievement context in an unselected sample of Swedish adolescents. The participants were 880 14–15-year-old comprehensive school students (399 boys and 481 girls) from a middle-sized town in central Sweden. Six groups of adolescents were identified according to the strategies they deployed. Four of them, i.e. optimistic, defensive pessimistic, self-handicapping and learned helplessness strategies, were similar to those described previously in the literature. The results showed that membership in the functional strategy groups, such as in mastery-oriented and defensive pessimist groups, was associated with well-being, school adjustment and achievement, and low levels of norm-breaking behaviour. By contrast, membership in the dysfunctional, for example self-handicapping and learned helplessness strategy groups, was associated with low levels of well-being, and of school adjustment, and a higher level of norm-breaking behaviour. Copyright 2002 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

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    Reprint requests and correspondence should be addressed to: Sami Määttä, Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35, 40351 Jyväskylä, Finland. (E-mail: [email protected].)

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