The relationship between achievement goals and academic performance through the mediation of thinking styles among gifted and ordinary students

Using the structural equation modeling method، this study aimed at exploring the relationships between achievement goals and academic performance through the mediation of the first type of thinking styles among gifted and ordinary students. Study populations were gifted and ordinary junior year high school students of Urmia City. 200 ordinary and 150 gifted Students were selected through stratified sampling method. They replied to the Thinking styles Questionnaire (Sternberg & Wagner، 1992) and the Achievement Goals Questionnaire (Midgely، et. al، 2000). The research findings revealed that the first type thinking style has a mediational role in the relationship between achievement goals and academic performance (p=0. 001). The finding of group comparison showed that the effect mastery goals on first type thinking style among gifted students was greater than in ordinary students (p=0. 001) and the effect of avoidance-approach goals among ordinary students was greater (p=0. 05)، while the effect of performance- approach goals on first type thinking style was not significant among groups. Tested model goodness of fit indexes showed that the research model was fitted with data (CFI=0. 90، RMSEA=0. 08، GFI (gifted) = 0. 98، GFI (ordinary) = 0. 90).