Examining the relationship between thinking styles and self-efficacy in learning with students' performance in history, with the mediating role of goal orientation and autonomous motivation.

Abstract

Abstract
This study aims to examine the causal relationship between thinking styles and self-efficacy in learning with the academic performance of secondary school students in history, with the mediating role of goal orientation and autonomous motivation in the city of Babel, Iraq. The statistical population of the study included all history students in the cities of Babel/Hilla, totaling 3,500 individuals. Based on the sample size table by Krejcie and Morgan (1970), a sample of 346 students was randomly selected through cluster sampling. To collect data, the following questionnaires were used: the Jinks and Morgan (1999) Learning Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, the Elliot and McGregor (2001) Goal Orientation Questionnaire, the Ryan and Connell (1989) Self-Determined Motivation Questionnaire, Sternberg's (1997) Thinking Styles Questionnaire, and students' history scores to assess performance. The reliability of the questionnaires was found to be 0.90, 0.82, 0.86, and 0.80, respectively. Results showed that there was a significant relationship between the following thinking styles: legislative, executive, judicial, monarchic, hierarchical, oligarchic, anarchic, global, local, internal, external, and free-thinking with goal orientation (r = 0.076, -0.104, 0.237, -0.237, 0.099, -0.178, -0.374, -0.363, 0.125, 0.323, 0.233, 0.551). Additionally, learning self-efficacy had an impact on goal orientation (β = 0.670). Based on the coefficient of determination (R²), 44.9% of the variance in learning self-efficacy was shared with goal orientation. Furthermore, there was a significant relationship between the thinking styles and autonomous motivation (r = -0.016, 0.029, -0.047, 0.083, -0.533, 0.241, -0.143, -0.216, 0.672, 0.083, 0.035, 0.083, 0.026), and learning self-efficacy had an effect on autonomous motivation (β = 0.510). The findings showed a significant relationship between executive, judicial, monarchic, hierarchical, oligarchic, anarchic, global, local, free-thinking, and conservative thinking styles with performance in history (r = -0.373, 0.175, -0.437, 0.311, -0.279, 0.091, -0.655, 0.088, 0.036, 0.305). The relationship between legislative, internal, and external thinking styles with performance in history was not significant. Also, learning self-efficacy did not affect performance in history (β = 0.115). Goal orientation influenced performance in history (β = 0.512), and autonomous motivation also had an effect on performance in history (β = 0.333). The findings revealed that the relationship between thinking styles (executive, judicial, monarchic, hierarchical, oligarchic, anarchic, global, local, free-thinking, conservative) and performance in history was mediated by goal orientation (r = 0.039, -0.053, 0.121, -0.121, -0.050, -0.091, -0.191, -0.185, 0.064, 0.165, 0.119, 0.281). Also, the relationship between thinking styles (executive, judicial, monarchic, hierarchical, oligarchic, anarchic, global, local, free-thinking, conservative) and performance in history was mediated by autonomous motivation (r = -0.005, 0.009, -0.009, -0.027, -0.176, 0.080, -0.047, -0.071, 0.222, 0.027, 0.012, 0.027, -0.008). There was a significant relationship between learning self-efficacy and performance in history with goal orientation as a mediator (r = 0.342), and between learning self-efficacy and performance in history with autonomous motivation as a mediator (r = 0.168).