摘要：Educating Prisoners has become a worldwide concern as a measure that can save community costs associated with criminal behavior. In Uganda, there is low participation in formal and vocational training among prisoners which can be associated with lack of knowledge on achievement goal orientations. This is central for adequate implementation of academic and vocational education in prisons, otherwise it may lead to wasted Government initiative and commitment on education as a rehabilitation strategy for prisoners. The purpose of the study was to assess demographic variations in achievement goal orientations among prisoners on formal and vocational training in Uganda. This study adopted across sectional survey design with a mixed methods approach. The population was adult male and female prisoners enrolled on both formal and vocational training in Luzira prison using census sampling strategy. Measures used included the bio data section and the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Survey. Permission was sought from all relevant authorities and data analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) version 20. The study found out that there is no statistically significant relationship between mastery goals and demographic information; and between performance approach goals and demographic information reflected in the P values. However, there is a statistically significant relationship between performance avoidance goals and gender (P=.013). There is no statistically significant relationship between Approach avoidance goals and other demographic variables as reflected in their P values. The findings of this study may be used by prison education instructors, administrators and curriculum planners in bridging the gap between demographic variations and achievement goal orientations. This study posit to the importance of understanding prisoners goal orientations and how these goals influence their learning and academic outcomes. It is generally acknowledged that setting achievement goal orientations may be integrated into instructional materials to promote better academic achievement. Prisoners participating in academic and vocational education should be encouraged to adopt achievement goals according to the broader social and psychological horizon which shall help to direct their attention towards activities that will help them energies performance there by motivating prisoners expend greater effort in line with difficulties of achieving goals, spend more time and persist longer working on tasks to improve the overall performance
