Application of Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Latent Growth Model to Examines the Goal-Setting Behavior of Students

Student’s goal-setting is the process of identifying specific academic, personal, and professional objectives and then planning concrete steps to achieve them during time in university. The purpose of this research is identifying and confirming the factor structure of the goal-setting construct using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Latent Growth Modelling (LGM) approaches to analyse the growth model of goal-setting over time. The population in this study consists of active third-semester students of Muhammadiyah Universities in Lampung Province Indonesia. The research was conducted using a longitudinal design by observing changes in students' views or thoughts in setting goals over three different time periods. The resulting factor scores were analysed descriptively and comparatively to observe changes in goal-setting scores. The research results show that the factor loading values for each item indicate the strength of the relationship between the indicators and the latent goal-setting, also the consistent increase in goal-setting scores during each measurement period. However, the variation among individuals goal-setting in the third period was statistically insignificant, meaning the differences among individuals were narrowing. This indicates that most individuals have aligned their goals with real situations through the fulfilment of aspects such as choice selection, loss-based selection, goal relevance, and methods/resources. This research provides an overview of the importance of reinforcing the four aspects of goal-setting in supporting the development of students' goal-setting in the university environment, as well as the interventions that need to be carried out to support this reinforcement.