The Examination of the Relationships among Middle School Students' Epistemological Beliefs, Goal Orientations, and Achievement Emotions: A Structural Equation Modeling Study

Abstract This study examined the relationships among middle school students' epistemological beliefs, achievement emotions, and goal orientations, and it was conducted with the participation of 1073 middle school students from seven different public schools in Turkey. A correlative research design was employed, and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was conducted. According to the results, sophisticated epistemological beliefs were positively related to mastery and performance goal orientations. In the relationship between epistemological beliefs and achievement emotions, it was observed that generally sophisticated epistemological beliefs positively predicted positive achievement emotions and negatively predicted negative achievement emotions. An analysis of the relationships between goal orientations and achievement emotions found no significant relationship between performance-approach goals and positive–negative achievement emotions, whereas there was a significant relationship between all other subdimensions. However, the study discussed inconsistent results for some subdimensions of epistemological beliefs and goal orientations. Further research is needed to examine the relationship between epistemological beliefs and achievement emotions in middle school students.