Guidance and goals: The complexity of the advisor-graduate student relationship

Abstract

The present study sought to determine if there is an association between the type of advisement graduate students experience and their adoption of specific achievement goals. Three hundred seven graduate students at a large, public University in the Midwestern region of the United States from a number of academic programs completed a survey in which perceived advising style, achievement goal orientations in conjunction with the respective reasons for pursuing those goals, and various demographic information was reported. Correlational analyses revealed weak to moderate associations between perceived authoritative advising and autonomous goal complexes as well as between perceived authoritarian advising and controlled goal complexes. Implications for advisors, implications for graduate students, and recommendations for future work are discussed.