Differences in Parenting Attitudes and School Life Adjustment according to Adolescents' Social Achievement Goal Latent Profiles

The purpose of this study was to analyze latent profile types of adolescents’ social achievement goals and to examine differences in perceived parenting attitudes and school adjustment across profiles. To this end, a questionnaire on social achievement goals, parenting attitudes, and school adjustment was administered to 408 sixth‐grade elementary and middle school students from two metropolitan cities. The collected data were analyzed using latent profile analysis (LPA), and one‐way analysis of variance (One‐Way ANOVA) was conducted to test for differences among the derived groups. The analysis yielded five distinctive profiles: (1) Mastery-Focused & Avoidance-Suppressed, characterized by high mastery goals, moderate approach goals, and low avoidance goals; (2) Mastery-Only, with a singular focus on mastery goals; (3) Intermediate-Balanced, with all goals at moderate levels; (4) Low-Motivation/Non-Mastery, with generally low endorsement across goals; and (5) High-All-Goals, with uniformly high levels on all goal dimensions. Notably, adolescents in the High-All-Goals and Mastery-Focused & Avoidance-Suppressed profiles perceived higher levels of positive parenting attitudes and demonstrated superior adjustment across all school domains (learning activities, peer relationships, teacher–student relationships, and compliance with school norms). This study makes several contributions. First, it empirically identified and typified adolescents’ social achievement goal orientations. Second, it revealed that school adjustment characteristics and needs differ according to achievement motivation profile. Third, based on these results, it suggests directions for tailored educational and counseling interventions according to students’ motivational profiles. These findings are expected to aid practitioners in developing practical support strategies that consider students’ social achievement goal types in educational settings.