There may be successful and less successful learners in every learning context. The latter group may try their best to improve their performance in comparison with their previous failures. To achieve such an objective, they try to adopt goals which are likely to promote their success. Such goals are commonly known as personal best goals. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of personal best goals in behavioural, cognitive, and emotional engagement of learners in an academic context. The participants of the study consisted of 302 B.A. university students majoring in English literature. One questionnaire consisting of items relating to different types of engagement and personal best goals was applied to collect the data of the study. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted for each of the measures related to personal best goals, behavioural, emotional, and cognitive engagement, each showing an acceptable goodness of fit index. Moreover, a model was proposed. In the proposed structural equation model, personal best goals accounted for 55, 51, and 51 percent of variance in cognitive, behavioural, and emotional engagement, respectively.

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