engleski

Optimisam and pesimism as predictors of students goal orientations in learning, school anxiety and life satisfaction

The aim of this research was to examine the extent to which optimism and pessimism contribute to an explanation of goal orientations in the learning, school anxiety and life satisfaction of students in higher elementary school classes. 213 students aged from 12 to 14 years, 94 girls and 114 boys, participated in the study. The Youth Life Orientation Test (Ey et al., 2004), the Questionnaire Of Goal Orientations in Learning (Niemivirta, 1996, 1999 ; Rijavec and Brdar 2002), the Questionnaire on the Examination of Children’s School Anxiety (Arambašić and Krizmanić, 1986) and the Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (Huebner, 1991) were administered. Linear regression analyses show that optimism is a significant predictor of learning and performance goal orientation, whereas pessimism is a crucial predictor of work avoidance orientation. Both optimism and pessimism are significant predictors of text anxiety but the contribution of pessimism is stronger. Also, optimism was found to be the only significant predictor of life satisfaction. Gender and age were not significant predictors, except for work avoidance orientation. Boys and older students were more prone to this goal orientation than younger students and girls. Although this is a correlational study, the results indicate the significance of both optimism and pessimism in the educational context, and for the life satisfaction of students in higher elementary school classes as well.

Goal orientations; optimism; pessimism; school

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