Assessing primary and secondary students’ achievement goals for Italian and mathematics domains: The Italian version of the Achievement Goal Questionnaire-Revised (AGQ-R)

Besides responding to the need to develop a version of the Achievement Goal Questionnaire-Revised (AGQ-R, Elliot & Murayama, 2008) in the Italian language supporting its construct and criterion validity, this work aimed at testing its measurement invariance across a variety of factors and providing new data on cross-sectional age, gender, and domain differences, particularly to extend the understanding of mastery-avoidance goals. The participants were 365 fourth, seventh, and eleventh-graders, who completed two versions of the AGQ-R referred to Italian and mathematics. We also examined responses of the American participants involved in the development of the original instrument. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the goodness of the hypothesized model, characterized by scalar invariance across country, metric invariance across class level, and uniqueness invariance across gender. Structural equation models showed that first-term performance positively predicted the four goal types, while mastery-approach goals positively predicted second-term performance and pleasantness. Achievement goals, higher for Italian for eleventh-graders and females, decreased at increasing ages. Notwithstanding limitations, our data support the validity of this version of the AGQ-R with primary and secondary school students.