Research Motivation
Academic emotions are integral to students’ motivation, engagement, and academic outcomes (Pekrun, 2006). Among these, pride and shame– self-conscious emotions linked to achievement outcomes– are particularly salient yet underexplored. According to Control-Value Theory (CVT) (Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun & Perry, 2014), students’ emotional experiences in learning are shaped by their appraisals of control and value. Achievement goals, as distal motivational beliefs, influence these appraisals and thereby indirectly affect emotions (Pekrun et al., 2002). Importantly, CVT also posits that emotions reciprocally influence motivational beliefs over time, forming dynamic feedback loops (Pekrun et al., 2006). However, empirical evidence testing these bidirectional processes remains scarce– especially among early adolescents and in non-Western educational contexts. To address these gaps, this study examines the longitudinal, reciprocal associations between four achievement goals and two key outcome emotions– pride and shame– among Taiwanese junior high school students.
Literature Review
1. Academic Outcome Emotions: Pride and Shame
Pride and shame play central roles in learning. Pride is a positive, activating emotion that arises when success is attributed to internal, controllable causes and is personally valued. In contrast, shame is a negative, activating emotion triggered by perceived failure and low controllability– even when failure is attributed to a lack of effort (Pekrun et al., 2023). Empirical research links pride to increased motivation, self-regulation, and academic achievement, whereas shame predicts maladaptive outcomes such as avoidance, helplessness, and disengagement (Butz et al., 2016; McGregor & Elliot, 2005).
2. Four-dimensional Achievement Goals
Achievement goals– the reasons students engage in academic tasks– are key motivational constructs. The 2×2 framework of achievement goals (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) classifies goals along two dimensions: the definition of competence (mastery vs. performance) and motivational valence (approach vs. avoidance). This yields four goal types: mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance. A meta-analysis by Huang (2012) demonstrated this framework’s superior predictive power for academic outcomes. Subsequent studies have used it to examine relationships between achievement goals and emotional, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes across cultural and developmental contexts (Demirbag & Bahcivan, 2022; Peng, 2019; Putwain, Larkin et al., 2013; Putwain, Sander et al., 2013).
3. Linking Achievement Goals with Emotions
Within CVT, achievement goals shape students’ emotional experiences by guiding control-value appraisals. Performance goals, emphasizing normative evaluation, often evoke pride or shame. Mastery goals, typically tied to learning-focused emotions, can also trigger pride or shame depending on students’ internal standards and outcome interpretations (Putwain, Larkin et al., 2013). Prior studies suggest that performance-approach goals are positively linked to pride, while avoidance goals– both mastery-avoidance and performance-avoidance– are associated with shame, especially under low perceived control (Goetz et al., 2016; Pekrun et al., 2009). Yet few studies have tested whether these emotions reciprocally influence future motivational orientations.
4. The Present Study
Building on this foundation, the present study examined the reciprocal, longitudinal relations between four achievement goals and the outcome emotions of pride and shame among Taiwanese seventh-grade students. Mathematics was chosen as the target domain due to its emotional salience and academic importance in East Asian contexts (Gladstone et al., 2018; OECD, 2016). Gender and prior academic achievement were included as control variables due to their known associations with goal endorsement and emotional responses (Pekrun et al., 2009; Watt, 2006).
Method
This study adopted a three-wave longitudinal design to examine the reciprocal relations between achievement goals and academic emotions among Taiwanese junior high school students. A regionally stratified convenience sampling approach was used to recruit 835 Grade 7 students from 17 schools across northern, central, and southern Taiwan. After removing inattentive or incomplete responses, a final sample of 792 students (354 boys, 438 girls) completed all three waves of data collection over one academic year, with approximately six-month intervals.
Two cross-lagged panel models (CLPMs) were estimated using structural equation modeling (SEM) with LISREL 8.50 and maximum likelihood estimation. Each model included four types of achievement goals (mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach, performance- avoidance) and two academic emotions (pride and shame). Gender and prior math achievement– indexed by three midterm exam scores from the second semester and standardized within classrooms– served as control variables. All measures were administered in validated, abbreviated formats with demonstrated internal consistency across waves (Cronbach’s α = .79-.92). To account for clustering effects due to nested data, all variables were standardized at the classroom level prior to model estimation.
Results and Discussion
The results revealed evolving reciprocal relations between achievement goals and academic emotions. Mastery-approach goals initially predicted increases in pride, but this relation became reciprocal over time, indicating that pride not only stems from adaptive goal pursuit but also reinforces subsequent mastery-approach motivation. In contrast, mastery-avoidance and performance-avoidance goals showed stable mutual reinforcement with shame– students who adopted avoidance goals felt greater shame, which in turn intensified avoidance motivation. This pattern reflects a maladaptive cycle of emotional vulnerability and motivational withdrawal.
Moreover, performance-avoidance goals were found to suppress pride over time; paradoxically, pride later predicted greater endorsement of performance-avoidance goals. This asymmetrical relation suggests that even positive emotions, when experienced under high-stakes evaluative pressure, can feed self-protective motivational tendencies. Additionally, the initially one-way association between performance-avoidance and shame evolved into a reciprocal loop, indicating that emotional distress may gradually shape motivational orientations.
Conclusions
These findings offer robust empirical support for the CVT model, highlighting the dynamic, bidirectional nature of motivation-emotion processes. They underscore the importance of early interventions that reduce avoidance goals and foster adaptive emotional regulation– especially in high-pressure academic contexts like mathematics. Cultivating pride through mastery-oriented goals and equipping students to manage shame in the face of difficulty may help break maladaptive cycles and promote more resilient, engaged learning trajectories.
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