International Journal of Innovation and Scientific Research ISSN 2351-8014 Vol. 2 No. 1 Jun. 2014, pp. 1-7 © 2014 Innovative Space of Scientific Research Journals http://www.ijisr.issr-journals.org/ Corresponding Author: Muhammad Akram (akramsharif143@yahoo.com) 1 Students’ Perceived Autonomy Support and its Impact on Achievement Goals Muhammad Akram 1 , Dr. Sarwat Sultan 2 , and Sohail Ijaz 3 1 Lecturer of Psychology, Govt. Postgraduate College Vehari, Pakistan 2 Assistant Professor in Psychology Department, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Pakistan 3 Lecturer of Psychology, Govt. Degree College Mailsi Vehari, Pakistan Copyright © 2014 ISSR Journals. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT: This study is about Students’ Perceived Autonomy Support and its Impact on Achievement Goals. There are two types of achievement goals, mastery and performance goals. The age of participants ranges 20-25 year. This study shows the co relation between the achievement goals and student perceived autonomy support. The sample was consisted of 100,50 male and 50 female participants taken from Bhaud din Zikariya University Multan. Autonomy support and achievement goal scales were administered on participants. Results indicate that there is strong positive co-relation between perceived autonomy support and achievement goal. Female perceive more autonomy support than males. The results indicated that male have more mastery goal than females. Female have more performance goals than male students. Joint family system is also showing the high perceived autonomy support than students of nuclear family system. Students of urban area are also showing the high perceived autonomy support than students of rural area. KEYWORDS: perceived autonomy support, achievement goals. 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 WHAT IS AUTONOMY? For a definition of autonomy, Benson & Voller (1997) stated that an autonomy is an ability of a learner which is used by him to explore the ways and decisions to learn by own self. the word autonomy can be use in different ways as well as in different situations. Benson and Voller (1997), for instance, explain the five ways in which the word autonomy could be used; it can be used for the situations and circumstances in which the learners are entirely able to study the subject material by their own; it can be used for those skills and abilities whose learning and application is directed by their own; it can be used for the inherited ability of the learner that is not explored by the individual educational systems of different institutions; it can be used for the repeated practices an experiences of the responsibilities of learner for their own process of learning; it can be used for the rights of the learners to select the ways and methods of thei own learning. There are, however, lot many dimensions, including educational set up, in which the term autonomy can be defined; sheerin (1991), for instance, claimed the autonomy as independence. The word autonomy can be defined in term of language awareness (Lier, 1996). Candy (1991) explained the term autonomy as self-direction. 1.2 LEARNER AUTONOMY After defining the term autonomy, there is a struggle to focus the attention on the explanation of learner autonomy. Little (1991) define learner autonomy as the learner is in autonomous condition when there is the relationship between the process of learning and the content of learning, while the relationship is purely psychological. This relationship, being too