Philippine E-Journals

Students’ Social Reasons for Doing Schoolwork: Patterns across Childhood and Adolescence

Jerome A. Ouano

 

Abstract:

The present study examined the social goal orientations of Filipino students from late childhood to adolescence and tested the hypothesis that the endorsement of social goals varies as a function of developmental characteristics of late childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence. Cross-sectional data were obtained from 302 participants involving fifth and sixth graders, high school, and college students. The endorsement of each type of social goals significantly differed across at least two stages under study, and two patterns of changes in social goal endorsement were reported. Social concern and social status goals were increasing across the three stages. Social affiliation, social approval, and social responsibility goals weakened in early adolescence. Differences in the strength of social goal endorsement are knitted to the developmental characteristics that differ across childhood and adolescence. The results provided an initial evidence of a possible trajectory of social goal endorsement across various stages of development of the students.