Incidence of sex, number of siblings and birth order in the academic goals of university students

Abstract

Academic motivation is a central part of learning processes and achievement behavior. In the literature the existence of different reasons to be involved in learning activities that shape academic goals has been evidenced. There are also personal and contextual variables that can influence the development of different academic goals. However, there are few studies on the incidence of personal variables and family structure in the academic goals of university students. The objective of this research was to analyze the relationship between sex, number of siblings, birth order and students’ academic goals. Participants were 567 Mexican university students, aged 18 to 25, from families with only one child and with several children, who answered the Questionnaire for the Evaluation of Academic Goals (CEMA, Nuñez, González-Pienda, González-Pumariega, García, and Roces, 1997). Results show that males with fewer siblings tend to look for achievement goals, which in turn are related to higher academic achievement. First-born women are oriented to learning goals and present higher academic performance, than those born later. We can conclude that for this sample there is a specific pattern by sex between family size, birth order, academic goals and academic performance.