Despite the widespread adoption of tutorial classes as learning forums in higher education, few studies have investigated students’ experiences of the motivational emphasis of tutorials and the relationships between students’ perceptions of these goal structures, their self- reported personal achievement goals and their course achievement. Achievement goal theory is an important motivational construct as it provides explanations for students’ approaches to the mastery of knowledge, skills and understandings and to performance in the academic domain. In the present study 176 university undergraduate students’ personal achievement goals were measured at the beginning of a course of study (Time 1) (T1) and their perceptions of tutorial goal structures measured at the end of the final tutorial (Time 2) (T2) for the same course. Students’ prior and concurrent course achievements were also collected for the same academic domain. Partial least squares (PLS) path modelling analyses using SmartPLS revealed students’ self-reported mastery-approach and performance-approach goals at T1 positively and significantly influenced their perceptions of the corresponding mastery and performance tutorial goal structures at T2. Significant direct relationships were also demonstrated between prior achievement and personal mastery-approach and performance-approach goals at T1. The study highlights the role played by university students’ prior achievement in predicting their personal achievement goals and their personal achievement goal orientations in predicting their perceptions of achievement goal structures in tutorials. These findings have important implications for tutorial-based learning.

Keywords: achievement goal theory, tutorial goal structures, path modelling