Students’ focus being in control of tasks within their environment enables the desire to acquiring new knowledge an aspect that is key to academic performance. Mastery oriented students are usually in control and tend to be more satisfied with their work than those who are influenced by other external performance indicators like marks or scores. They will therefore get involved in mainly those activities that will add to their knowledge. This paper, taking this aspect into consideration explains the influence of mastery orientation among African undergraduate students living in the United States on their achievement of possible selves. The study was carried out in institutions of higher learning in the United States. It involved undergraduate students registered in any of the semesters in the Spring semester, 2007 and the year 2006. The study consisted of a conveniently sampled size of 204 students drawn from undergraduate programs in four schools in the Southeast United States. Data collection was done by means of a questionnaire which was later subjected to analysis through descriptive means and multiple regression. The demographic variables identified in the study included age, length of stay, subject majors, school classification, financial support by family and schools. It was concluded that these aspects positively influenced achievement of possible selves as the higher the variable the significant the influence it had on the students.
Keywords: Acculturation, African students, Demographics, Mastery orientation, Possible Selves, Self Identity, United States
