Metacognition drives mastery goals: A simpler route to enhanced achievement

The aims of this study were (1) to examine the reciprocal effects between mastery goals and metacognitive strategies and (2) to investigate the effects of metacognitive strategies and mastery goals and their direction of effect in predicting academic achievement. Mastery goal and metacognitive strategy questionnaires were administered to 7,206 Hong Kong Chinese high school students at three time points spread over three years. Path models provided evidence of reciprocal effects between mastery goals and metacognitive strategies. Moreover, we also found that depicting metacognitive strategies as antecedents whose effects on academic achievement are fully mediated through mastery goals was more heuristic. Implications are discussed.