Modern Applied Science; Vol. 11, No. 1; 2017 ISSN 1913-1844 E-ISSN 1913-1852 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 37 On the Effect of Goal Setting on Self-Directed Learning, Achievement Motivation, and Academic Achievement among Students Fatemeh Hematian 1 , Ali Mohammad Rezaei 2 & Mohammad Ali Mohammadyfar 3 1 M.A. Student of Educational psychology, Semnan University, Iran 2 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran 3 Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran Correspondence: Ali Mohammad Rezaei, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran. E-mail: rezaei_am@semnan.ac.ir Received: June 18, 2016 Accepted: July 13, 2016 Online Published: October 5, 2016 doi:10.5539/mas.v11n1p37 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/mas.v11n1p37 Abstract This study aimed to investigate the effect of goal setting on self-directed learning, achievement motivation, and academic achievement in students. All secondary school students at eighth grade in Semnan city in 2015 constituted the population of the study. From among this population, the number of 40 students with the lowest scores in self-directed learning and achievement motivation was randomly selected as the sample. Then, these students were equally placed in two experimental and control groups. In the next stage, the pretest was administered to both groups and the experimental group received nine training sessions of self-directed learning. It is noteworthy that the control group received no intervention. In this study, pretest-posttest along with control group design was used. Fisher, King & Tague's Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale and Herman's Questionnaire Measure of Achievement Motivation along with students' grade point average scores (first semester as the pretest and second semester as the posttest) were used for data collection purposes. Next, data analysis was performed using multivariate MANCOVA and univariate ANCOVA. The results showed that teaching of goal setting had a significant effect on the improvement of self-directed learning and achievement motivation; however, it had no significant effect on students' academic achievement. According to the obtained results, it is recommended that goal setting be taught to promote self-directed learning and achievement motivation. Keywords: goal setting, self-directed learning, achievement motivation, and academic achievement 1. Introduction 1.1 Introduce the Problem Knowledge and its acquisition play such an important role in the contemporary society that one can claim that people are living in the knowledge era at the present time. Rapid cultural, political, social, and economic changes have converted self-directed learning to an essential requirement nowadays (Alotaibi, 2016). This issue has made self-directed learning one of the most attractive topics in the field of learning and teaching (Roberson, 2005; Teo, et al., 2010). According to this urgent need, training courses have been designed to enhance students' self-directed learning and this is effective in preparing students for learning at school (Khiat, 2015). Therefore, people should regard learning control and self-directedness as lifelong priorities (Siriwongs, 2015). In different societies, expert groups and psychologists have always emphasized various aspects of education and assigned credit to the identification of the factors influencing education (Lounsbury, Steel, Loveland & Gibson, 2004) because not only students and their families, but also the society spends huge costs on the study and education of students. Success and academic achievement in each community reflect the success of the whole educational system in terms of goal setting and attention to the fulfillment of individual needs. Factors affecting learning and academic achievement are very broad and the identification of these factors is of great importance in solving the problems and deficiencies available in the educational system. One of the factors contributing to academic achievement and the enhancement of educational output is to create motivation in people for learning. In fact, some researchers believe that learning and motivation are so interconnected that that there is no possibility of learning perception without motivation perception (Moreno, 2010). The strong positive correlation between