Advancing Achievement Goal Theory: Using Goal Structures and Goal Orientations to Predict Students' Motivation, Cognition, and Achievement.

The objective of this study was to investigate how different components of achievement goal theory were related to each other and to students' motivation, cognitive engagement, and achievement in mathematics. Junior high school students (N=525) completed a self-report survey that assessed their perceived classroom goal structures; personal goal orientations: and a collection of outcomes that included persistence, procrastination, choice, their use of cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies, and mathematics grade. Results indicate that mastery structure and mastery orientation were related to adaptive outcomes in all areas. The patterns of relations for performance-approach goal structure, and for performance-approach and performance-avoidance goal orientations were less uniform across outcomes. Implications for achievement goal theory and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Dilemma of Performance-Approach Goals: The Use of Multiple Goal Contexts to Promote Students' Motivation and Learning.

The study examines the effects of a quasi-experimental classroom goal condition (mastery, performance-approach, combined mastery/performance-approach) and entering personal goal orientations on motivation, emotional well-being, help seeking, cognitive engagement, and achievement for 237 upper elementary students during a 5-week math unit emphasizing small groups. The classroom goal condition had a significant effect on help seeking and achievement, with the combined condition showing the most beneficial pattern. Personal mastery goals were beneficial for 11 of 12 outcomes including achievement; personal performance-approach goals were detrimental for achievement and test anxiety and unrelated to the remaining outcomes. The effect of the classroom goal condition did not vary on the basis of entering personal goal orientations. Implications for the current achievement goal theory debate regarding multiple goals are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Regulation of Achievement Goals: The Role of Competence Feedback.

Two studies examined the degree to which pursuit of achievement goals is regulated in response to ongoing competence feedback. In Study 1, conducted in a college classroom, goal pursuit remained largely stable throughout the semester, yet poor exam performance predicted a significant decrease in mastery goal and performance-approach goal pursuit and an increase in performance-avoidance goal pursuit. In Study 2, conducted in a laboratory, negative feedback reduced participants' mastery goal pursuit. In addition, both studies showed unique benefits of 2 goals: The performance-approach goal predicted success on exams (Study 1) and a novel activity (Study 2), and the mastery goal predicted higher interest in both studies. Implications of achievement goal regulation for both theory and research methodology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived Achievement Goal Structure and College Student Help Seeking.

Two studies examined associations between college students' help seeking and perceptions of their classes' achievement goal structure. Study 1 established that students' help seeking (N = 883 in 6 chemistry classes) could be parsimoniously described by distinct approach (intentions to seek autonomous help from teachers) and avoidance patterns (threat, avoidance intentions, seeking expedient help). In Study 2, after controlling for students' personal achievement goal orientations (N = 852 in 13 psychology classes), within-class differences in perceived class emphasis on mastery positively predicted help-seeking approach and negatively predicted help-seeking avoidance patterns, whereas perceived class emphasis on performance-avoid goals positively predicted help-seeking avoidance. Students in classes with greater perceived emphasis on performance-avoid goals had higher levels of help-seeking avoidance patterns. Results complement previous research on help seeking and achievement goals with younger learners and provide support for the role of classroom achievement goal structure in student motivation and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation.

A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation was proposed and tested in a college classroom with 178 undergraduates. Mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals were assessed and their antecedents and consequences examined. Results indicated that mastery goals were grounded in achievement motivation and high competence expectancies; performance-avoidance goals, in fear of failure and low competence expectancies; and performance-approach goals, in achievement motivation, fear of failure, and high competence expectancies. Mastery goals facilitated intrinsic motivation, performance-approach goals enhanced graded performance, and performance-avoidance goals proved inimical to both intrinsic motivation and graded performance. The proposed model represents an integration of classic and contemporary approaches to the study of achievement motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The joint influence of personal achievement goals and classroom goal structures on achievement-relevant outcomes.

The authors provide an analytic framework for studying the joint influence of personal achievement goals and classroom goal structures on achievement-relevant outcomes. This framework encompasses 3 models (the direct effect model, indirect effect model, and interaction effect model), each of which addresses a different aspect of the joint influence of the 2 goal levels. These 3 models were examined together with a sample of 1,578 Japanese junior high and high school students from 47 classrooms. Results provided support for each of the 3 models: Classroom goal structures were not only direct, but also indirect predictors of intrinsic motivation and academic self-concept, and some cross-level interactions between personal achievement goals and classroom goal structures were observed (indicating both goal match and goal mismatch effects). A call is made for more research that takes into consideration achievement goals at both personal and structural levels of representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence of social comparison in mastery goals in natural academic settings.

Proponents of achievement goal theory typically posit social comparison to be associated with performance goals but not with mastery goals (C. Ames, 1992). Contrary to this postulate, there is some evidence that individuals who are experimentally induced to adopt mastery goals may also use social comparison (e.g., R. Butler, 1992). However, such laboratory studies do not take into account the reality of the classroom, where evidence proves that students can endorse both types of goals. This leaves open the question of whether mastery goals are associated with social comparison, even after controlling for performance goals. The purpose of this study was to examine this question. French junior high school students completed a self-report survey assessing their personal achievement goals (mastery goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoidance goals) and their social comparison orientation (SCO) at school. Findings indicated that both types of achievement goals were positively associated with students' SCO. Moreover, mastery goals were still related to SCO even after controlling for performance goals. Implications of the interplay between achievement goals and social comparison theories are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predictors of Academic Self-Handicapping and Achievement: Examining Achievement Goals, Classroom Goal Structures, and Culture.

The purposes of this study were to examine the predictors and achievement consequences of academic self-handicapping and to explore cultural variations in the pursuit and effects of performance goals and perceived classroom performance goal structures. Data were collected in 2 consecutive academic years from a diverse sample of high school students (N=675). Performance-avoidance and classroom performance goal structure were positively associated with self-handicapping, whereas performance-approach goals negatively predicted handicapping. Self-handicapping was negatively associated with achievement in English. Cultural differences in the effects of performance goals on achievement and in the effects of classroom performance goal structure on the subsequent adoption of personal performance goals were found. Implications for efforts to alter classroom goal structures are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why grades engender performance-avoidance goals: The mediating role of autonomous motivation.

Evaluation is an inescapable feature of academic life with regular grading and performance appraisals at school and at university. Although previous research has indicated that evaluation and grading in particular are likely to have a substantial impact on motivational processes, little attention has been paid to the relationship between grading and approach versus avoidance achievement goals, 2 fundamental concerns whenever evaluation is at stake. Three experiments, carried out in professional schools, revealed that expectation of a grade for a task, compared with no grade, consistently induced greater adoption of performance-avoidance, but not performance-approach, goals. Experiments 2 and 3 revealed that expectation of a grade, compared with no grade, consistently induced greater adoption of performance-avoidance goals even when grading was accompanied by a formative comment. Furthermore, Experiment 3 showed that reduced autonomous motivation measured after having completed a task for a grade versus no grade mediated the relationship between grading and adoption of performance-avoidance goals in a subsequent task. Results are discussed in the light of achievement goal and self-determination theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

An integrative cultural view of achievement motivation: Parental and classroom predictors of children's goal orientations when learning mathematics in Korea.

Our goal was to identify how students' perceptions of their parents shape the kind and degree of motivational goal orientations that they adopt in their mathematics classroom, broadening the application of achievement goal orientation theory and self-determination theory to students in Korea. Two groups of students participated, one from a middle school located in a large metropolitan area and the other from a small city high school. Multisample path analysis of data from both groups revealed that Korean students' different goal orientations were predicted by their perceptions of parental goals and motivating styles and by their perceptions of classroom goal structures, mediated by different types of self-regulated motivations. Particularly interesting was the finding that Korean students' degree of mastery goal adoption was associated mostly with identified regulation, not with intrinsic motivation, and predicted by their perceptions of their parents' motivating styles, both autonomy supportive and controlling, in addition to perceptions of parents' mastery goals. Perceptions of classroom goals were stronger predictors of students' own goals than were perceptions of parents' goals and motivating styles. We offer an integration of self-determination theory and achievement goal theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement goals and achievement during early adolescence: Examining time-varying predictor and outcome variables in growth-curve analysis.

The present study advances understanding of (a) the development of achievement goals, (b) the changing association of achievement goals and achievement over time, and (c) the implications of changes in achievement goals for changes in achievement over time. African American and European American adolescents' (N=588) achievement goals and subsequent achievement were assessed at 4 time points (fall and spring of 6th and 7th grades) and modeled using growth-curve analytic techniques. There was an overall decline in all 3 types of achievement goals (mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals), because of within-year rather than between-year decreases. The association between mastery goals and achievement was null at Time 1 and then positive at the following 3 time points. The association between performance-approach goals and achievement went from negative to null across time. Changes in students' goals, as well as their initial levels of goals, were particularly important in understanding how mastery goals foreshadow achievement. The implications of the findings for both theory and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement goals, study strategies, and exam performance: A mediational analysis.

Two studies examined achievement goals as predictors of self-reported cognitive/metacognitive and motivational study strategies and tested these study strategies as mediators of the relationship between achievement goals and exam performance in the normatively graded college classroom. The results support hypotheses generated from the trichotomous achievement goal framework. Mastery goals are positive predictors of deep processing, persistence, and effort; performance-approach goals are positive predictors of surface processing, persistence, effort, and exam performance; and performance-avoidance goals are positive predictors of surface processing and disorganization and negative predictors of deep processing and exam performance. Persistence and effort mediate the relationship between performance-approach goals and exam performance, whereas disorganization mediates the relationship between performance-avoidance goals and exam performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Goal Orientation, Academic Achievement, and Depression: Evidence in Favor of a Revised Goal Theory Framework.

The objective of this investigation was to evaluate and expand the goal-orientation model of depression vulnerability proposed by B. M. Dykman (1998), which posits that a performance orientation creates a vulnerability to depression through repeated failure. This hypothesis was tested in 5 studies with students in Grades 5 and 6. A performance-approach goal orientation was associated positively with achievement, effort, and persistence and negatively with anxiety and depression. Stress and causal components of the theory were supported by results of structural equation modeling, which suggested that negative affect, low achievement, and depression are correlates of performance-avoidance goals. Empirical evidence supported the hypothesis that early negative effects of a performance-approach orientation may be due to the presence of avoidance motivation. Findings suggest that dichotomizing performance goal orientations is instrumental to a sound understanding of motivation, achievement-related processes, and depression (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The stereotyped task engagement process: The role of interest and achievement motivation.

Competence-based stereotypes can negatively affect women's performance in math and science (referred to as stereotype threat), presumably leading to lower motivation. The authors examined the effects of stereotype threat on interest, a motivational path not necessarily mediated by performance. They predicted that working on a computer science task in the context of math-gender stereotypes would negatively affect undergraduate women's task interest, particularly for those higher in achievement motivation who were hypothesized to hold performance-avoidance goals in response to the threat. Compared with when the stereotype was nullified, while under stereotype threat an assigned performance-avoidance (vs. -approach) goal was associated with lower interest for women higher in achievement motivation (Study 1), and women higher (vs. lower) in achievement motivation were more likely to spontaneously adopt performance-avoidance goals (Study 2). The motivational influence of performance-avoidance goals under stereotype threat was primarily mediated by task absorption (Study 3). Implications for the stereotyped task engagement process (Smith, 2004) are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early adolescents' perceptions of the classroom social environment, motivational beliefs, and engagement.

This research examined whether 5th-grade students' (N = 602) perceptions of the classroom social environment (teacher support, promotion of mutual respect, promotion of task-related interaction, student support) were related to their engagement in the classroom (self-regulation and task-related interaction) and whether those relations were mediated by personal motivational beliefs (mastery goals, academic and social efficacy). Teacher support, promotion of interaction, and student support were related to both types of engagement, and those relations were fully or partially mediated by motivational beliefs. Relations with promoting mutual respect were not significant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related differences in achievement goal differentiation.

Validity of the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework for school-aged children and adolescents was examined, using self-report responses from 1,196 Korean elementary and middle school students. Confirmatory factor analysis models hypothesizing 4 distinct achievement goal factors demonstrated the best fit in all age groups. Nevertheless, achievement goals of these young students were strongly correlated with each other, regardless of the goal definition or valence. The correlation became increasingly weaker with the increasing age of the respondents. Students in Grades 1–4 endorsed a mastery-approach goal most strongly, but those in Grades 5–9 endorsed a performance-approach goal. Performance-avoidance and mastery-avoidance goals received significantly lower average ratings than did the 2 approach goals in all age groups. Whereas both mastery-approach and performance-approach goals correlated positively with self-efficacy, strategy use, and performance in math, only the performance-approach goal correlated positively with anxiety. Anxiety also correlated positively with the 2 avoidance goals. A performance-avoidance goal further demonstrated positive correlation with help-seeking avoidance, whereas a mastery-avoidance goal did so with strategy use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Revision of achievement goal theory: Necessary and illuminating.

C. Midgley et al. (2001) raised important questions about the effects of performance-approach goals. The present authors disagree with their characterization of the research findings and implications for theory. They discuss 3 reasons to revise goal theory: (a) the importance of separating approach from avoidance strivings, (b) the positive potential of performance-approach goals, and (c) identification of the ways performance-approach goals can combine with mastery goal to promote optimal motivation. The authors review theory and research to substantiate their claim that goal theory is in need of revision, and they endorse a multiple goal perspective. The revision of goal theory is underway and offers a more complex, but necessary, perspective on important issues of motivation, learning, and achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement goals as predictors of achiement-relevant processes prior to task engagement.

This research comprised 3 studies (2 prospective and 1 short-term longitudinal) designed to investigate mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals as predictors of achievement-relevant processes prior to the undergraduate examination experience. Results from across the 3 studies were supportive of the authors' hypotheses and revealed a differential predictive pattern for each of the achievement goals. Mastery goals were linked to numerous positive processes (e.g., challenge appraisals, absorption during preparation), performance-approach goals were linked to a more limited set of positive processes (e.g., challenge appraisals, grade aspirations), and performance-avoidance goals were linked to numerous negative processes (e.g., threat appraisals, anticipatory test anxiety). Implications for the trichotomous achievement goal model and educators are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Achievement goals and achievement emotions: Testing a model of their joint relations with academic performance.

The authors propose a theoretical model linking achievement goals and achievement emotions to academic performance. This model was tested in a prospective study with undergraduates (N = 213), using exam-specific assessments of both goals and emotions as predictors of exam performance in an introductory-level psychology course. The findings were consistent with the authors' hypotheses and supported all aspects of the proposed model. In multiple regression analysis, achievement goals (mastery, performance approach, and performance avoidance) were shown to predict discrete achievement emotions (enjoyment, boredom, anger, hope, pride, anxiety, hopelessness, and shame), achievement emotions were shown to predict performance attainment, and 7 of the 8 focal emotions were documented as mediators of the relations between achievement goals and performance attainment. All of these findings were shown to be robust when controlling for gender, social desirability, positive and negative trait affectivity, and scholastic ability. The results are discussed with regard to the underdeveloped literature on discrete achievement emotions and the need to integrate conceptual and applied work on achievement goals and achievement emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A longitudinal analysis of achievement goals: From affective antecedents to emotional effects and achievement outcomes.

Affect and emotions are frequently seen as outcomes of mastery and performance goals, but affective experiences may also predict goal adoption. In a predictive study (N = 669 first-year college students), the authors used structural equation modeling to estimate relationships from 2 initial affective experiences to mastery and performance-approach goals, from goals to discrete emotions, and from discrete emotions to final grades in a university course while controlling for prior achievement. Representing initial affective experiences, hopefulness positively predicted mastery and performance goals, whereas helplessness negatively predicted mastery goals. Mastery goals positively predicted enjoyment, which in turn positively predicted achievement, and negatively predicted boredom, which in turn negatively predicted achievement. Anxiety was negatively predicted by mastery goals, positively predicted by performance goals, and exerted a negative predictive influence on achievement. The findings suggest that predictive relationships between goals and achievement are mediated by students’ emotions. Results are discussed with regard to the importance of affect and emotions for achievement goal theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)