ABSTRACTThe study examined the relationship of achievement goals, metacognitive awareness on academic success among students of colleges of education in North Western Nigeria. The study was guided by five major objectives. The first two were to find out whether students’ achievement goals and metacognitive awareness correlate with their academic success. A total of ten hypotheses were formulated and tested. Out of a sample of 377 NCE III students, there were 17 mortality rates, 358 students comprising 242 males (67.6%) and 116 females (32.4%) were studied. Correlation survey was employed in the conduct of the study. The instruments used to collect data were students’ bio data form, achievement goals inventory (Roedel, Schraw & Plake, 1994), metacognitive awareness inventory (Schraw & Dennison, 1994) and students’ CGPA (NCCE minimum standard, 2013) was used as the index of academic success. Pearson Product Moment correlation, independent t-test, Analysis of Variance and regression analysis were the statistical tools used to analyze the data. Results of the analysis indicated that students’ achievement goals (r=0.554, p=0.004) and metacognitive awareness (r= 0.67, p=0.001) positively correlated with their academic success. Similarly, significant relationship exists between achievement goals and metacognitive awareness (r=0.77, p=0.000), metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation (r=071, p=0.000). The analysis revealed no mediation effect of gender on students’ achievement goals (p = 0.226, t = 1.213), metacognitive awareness (p = 0.991, t = 0.012) and academic success (p = 0.131, t = 1.513). Mastery goals (p = 0.004) and metacognitive knowledge (p = 0.13) can predict students’ CGPA. On the contrary, students of Federal Colleges outperformed those in State Colleges in their achievement goals (p = 0.000, t = 4.933), metacognitive awareness (p = 0.000, p = 4.313) and academic success (p = 0.000, t = 6.95). Students’ hostel accommodation was also found to influence their achievement goals (p = 001, t = 3.238), metacognitive awareness (p = 0.000, t = 3.989) and Academic success (p =031, t = 2.170). It was also found that NCE Arts had more goal orientation (p = 0.026, t = 2.243), metacognitive awareness (p = 0.155, t = 1.426) and academic success (p = 0.271, t = 1.102) than N.C.E Science students. Intense and moderate use of internet had significant influence on students’ achievement goals and academic success. Some recommendations were made, among which include the need for intervention using metacognitively oriented teaching strategies, provision of functional internet facilities and provision of adequate and standard hostel to accommodate more students to improve their achievement goals, metacognitive awareness and academic success.
