Antecedents of Educational Goal Commitment: an Experimental Investigation of the Role of Goal Abstraction, Integration, and Importance

This study investigated the antecedents of educational goal commitment regarding the transition from high school to college among 702 high-school students. A theoretical model based on assumptions from the expectancy-value framework (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002) and the hierarchical goal structure (Carver & Scheier, 1998) was tested. This model is composed of one proximal antecedent-goal importance-and two distal antecedents-goal abstraction and integration. The distal antecedents were experimentally manipulated. The results showed that (a) goal commitment is influenced by goal abstraction and integration, and (b) goal importance is a mediator of this effect. In addition to theoretical implications, a suggested pragmatic outcome is the development of a tool to guide students in the more effective structuring of their educational goals.