Presenting a Causal model of Relationships between Need for Cognition and Cognitive Engagement With Emphasis on the Mediating Role of Achievement goals and Academic Emotion (A case of virtual students)

The present study was fulfilled with the aim of presenting a causal model of the relationship between need for cognition and cognitive engagement regarding the mediating role of achievement goals and academic emotions among virtual students of Shiraz University by path analysis.
For so doing, 231(301 male and 109 female) virtual students were selected via stratified ratio sampling and then answered to a questionnaire consisted of need for cognition scale (Cacciopo& Petti, 1984), achievement goals scale (Middleton & Midgley, 1997), academic emotions scale (Pekrun et al. 2005), and cognitive engagement scale (Pintrich, 1991). The scales’ reliability was achieved based on Chronbach alpha coefficient. The study method was descriptive with co relational design.
Findings: Generally, the results showed that need for cognition indirectly and negatively affect shallow cognitive strategies through the mediation of performance-avoidance goals, performance-approach goals, mastery goals, and negative emotions. Moreover, need for cognition indirectly and positively affect deep cognitive strategies through the mediation of mastery goals, performance-avoidance goals, and positive emotions.
The fit indices of the model showed that the proposed model in the study have a relatively good fit with the data gathered from virtual students.