Achievement Motivation and Academic Performance among Turkish Early and Young Adolescents in the Netherlands

The authors conducted 3 studies in which Turkish and other adolescents in the Netherlands completed questionnaires that addressed the importance of collectivist cultural values for achievement motivation and educational outcomes. Compared with other minority group students and Dutch students, the Turkish students had stronger family-oriented achievement motivation. In addition, only among the Turks was ethnic identification positively related to family motivation. Furthermore, there were no differences in individual achievement motivation between the Turks and Dutch, and only among the former group was a combination of family motivation and individual motivation found. Also, for the Turks, family motivation was positively related to task-goal orientation, which mediated the relationship between family motivation and academic performance. Individual motivation was an independent predictor of performance. For the other ethnic minority groups and the Dutch, family motivation was not related to task-goal orientation and performance. In addition, for these groups, task-goal orientation mediated the relationship between individual achievement motivation and performance.