This study objective was to compare the achievement goals of students with high and low performance and to identify the differences related to gender and type of school. The participants consisted of 110 students from public and private high schools in Sao Paulo with ages ranging from 14 to 17. The instrument used was the Brazilian Scale for Assessment of Motivation for Learning - EMAPRE. The results showed that students with high performance were more oriented to the learning goal and students with low performance were more oriented to the performance avoidance goal. Comparing goals in relation to gender, the findings showed that the girls achieved significantly higher average scores on the learning goal. In relation to the type of school, public school students presented significantly higher scores on the learning goal than private school students. These findings corroborate others in the literature and gives evidence of the need for further research.
motivation; academic achievement; educational evaluation; high school students
