Academic Achievement Goal Orientation:Taking Another Look (Orientación de meta de logro académico: un nuevo planteamiento)

Was Christopher

Description

Abstract
Introduction: The distinction between mastery and performance goals has been the dominant theoretical approach to goal orientation study for the past three decades. Recent investigations have begun to provide evidence that further distinctions are necessary. It has also been implied that students? beliefs about the nature of intelligence play a role in the types of goals students set.
Method: Using confirmatory factor analysis, the current study attempted to include self-implicit theories of intelligence in a measure designed to capture the basic distinctions between mastery, performance-approach, performance-avoidant and work-avoidant goal orientations.
Results: Results support these basic distinctions and inclusion of intelligence items, yet indicate directions in which further research is warranted.
Conclusion: The current study does provide evidence that further examination of the role of implicit self-theories of intelligence in achievement goal orientation is a necessary line of research. These perceptions may be fundamental to the way students approach achievement tasks in academic settings. The current study also provides evidence that work-avoidant goals may be more than just an absence of achievement goal instead they may indeed entail an achievement goal orientation worthy of further examination.
Resumen
Introducción: La distinción entre metas de dominio y de rendimiento ha sido el planteamiento teórico dominante a la hora de estudiar la orientación de meta durante las últimas tres décadas. Las investigaciones recientes empiezan a aportar evidencia de que sean necesarias más distinciones. También se sugiere que las creencias de los alumnos sobre la naturaleza de la inteligencia inciden en la clase de metas que éstos se plantean.
Método: A través del análisis factorial confirmatorio, este trabajo pretende incorporar las teorías implícitas sobre la inteligencia en una medida diseñada para captar las distinciones básicas entre las orientaciones de meta de dominio, de aproximación al rendimiento, de evitación del rendimiento, y de evitación de esfuerzo.
Resultados: Los resultados refrendan estas distinciones básicas y la inclusión de elementos de la inteligencia, pero también indican temas que requieren una investigación más extensa.
Conclusión: El trabajo presente sí aporta evidencia que es necesaria una línea de investigación que examine en más detalle el papel de las teorías implícitas sobre la inteligencia en la orientación de meta de logro. Estas percepciones pueden ser fundamentales en la forma de la que los alumnos abordan las tareas de logro en los ambientes académicos. El trabajo presente también aporta evidencia de que las metas de evitación de esfuerzo pueden ser más que una simple ausencia de la meta de logro: en cambio puede que realmente supongan una orientación de meta de logro digna de más estudio.

Sujets

• Goal orientation
• Motivation
• Motivación

Informations

• Publié par: erevistas
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 12
• Langue: English

Extrait

Academic Achievement Goal Orientation:
Taking Another Look



Christopher Was



Department of Educational Foundations and Special Services,
Kent State University, Kent, Ohio



U.S.A.



[e-mail]




Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, No. 10, Vol 4(3), 2006. ISSN:1696-2095.pp: 529-550. - 529 -
Academic Achievement Goal Orientation: Taking Another Look

Abstract
Introduction: The distinction between mastery and performance goals has been the dominant
theoretical approach to goal orientation study for the past three decades. Recent investigations
have begun to provide evidence that further distinctions are necessary. It has also been im-
plied that students’ beliefs about the nature of intelligence play a role in the types of goals
students set.
Method: Using confirmatory factor analysis, the current study attempted to include self-
implicit theories of intelligence in a measure designed to capture the basic distinctions be-
tween mastery, performance-approach, performance-avoidant and work-avoidant goal orienta-
tions.
Results: Results support these basic distinctions and inclusion of intelligence items, yet indi-
cate directions in which further research is warranted.
Conclusion: The current study does provide evidence that further examination of the role of
implicit self-theories of intelligence in achievement goal orientation is a necessary line of re-
search. These perceptions may be fundamental to the way students approach achievement
tasks in academic settings. The current study also provides evidence that work-avoidant goals
may be more than just an absence of achievement goal instead they may indeed entail an
achievement goal orientation worthy of further examination.
Keywords: goal orientation, motivation, performance orientation, mastery orientation, work-
avoidance, implicit self-theories

-530- Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, No. 10, Vol 4(3), 2006. ISSN:1696-2095.pp: 529- 550 Christopher Was

Introduction
A prominent feature in motivation theory is the role of goals. Goals are defined as the
end toward which effort is directed. Stated another way, goals are that which an individual
attempts to accomplish. Goal orientation theory (also referred to as Achievement Goal Theory)
has been the focus of a great deal of research in education due to the impact that goals are
hypothesized to have on student performance. Goal orientation theorists have defined
achievement goals as the reason which one engages in an achievement task. De la Fuente
(2004) defines academic goals as “…motives of an academic nature that students use for guid-
ing their classroom behavior” (p. 38). The specific type of goals one sets determines the per-
sonal experience one has following success or failure of the task in which one engages. Goal
orientation theorists have engaged in attempts to determine the types of goals that are most
productive for students and what types of goals result in the cognitive strategies, affective
responses, and behaviors which lead to student success.

Goal orientation theory states that students have distinctive orientations towards cer-
tain types of goals. The dominant theoretical approach to goal orientation in academic settings
is one that distinguishes between mastery and performance orientations. The simple distinc-
tion between these goal orientations contends that students who set mastery goals focus on
learning the material and mastering the tasks at hand. Students who set performance goals are
concerned with demonstrating their ability and performance as measured by their relative
standing to others’ achievements. The distinction between these two different goal orienta-
tions has been a major focus in previous research regarding achievement motivation (e.g.,
Ames, 1992; Ames & Archer, 1988; Harackiewicz & Elliot, 1993; Nicholls, 1983; Maehr,
1984).
Mastery Goal Orientation
In the literature of more than the past 25 years mastery goals have been hypothesized
to be the appropriate approach to enhancing learning, increasing self-efficacy, effort, and per-
sistence as well as the goal orientation, which encourages the use of more effective metacog-
nitive and cognitive strategies. Researchers have also used terms such as learning goals
(Dweck, 1986) and task-involved goals (Nicholls, 1984) to describe mastery goal orientation.
Nicholls and Miller (1984) referred to task-involved learners as students who focus on master-
ing the task at hand, not in performing compared to others. Students attuned to learning or
Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, No. 10, Vol 4(3), 2006. ISSN:1696-2095.pp: 529-550. - 531 - Academic Achievement Goal Orientation: Taking Another Look
mastery goals persist longer on difficult tasks and are more likely to attribute success and fail-
ure to internal controllable causes. Students who set learning goals are also more likely to
show preference for challenge and academic risk taking (Ames, 1992). These findings are not
limited to k-12 students, but hold true for college students and adult populations as well. Du-
peyrat and Marine (2005) found that when adults in continuing education courses displayed
mastery goals, there was positive impact on learning outcomes, while adults who displayed
performance goals had negative learning outcomes.

When a student is attuned to mastery goals, effort is seen as contributing to success
and not as a measure of ability (Middleton and Midgley, 1997). When oriented toward mas-
tery or learning goals students see achievement (success) as learning something new or mas-
tering the task at hand. Elliot (1999) discussed the separation of mastery orientation into ap-
proach and avoidance categories. Mastery Approach orientation leads one to attempt to com-
plete the task in order to increase knowledge and Mastery Avoidance orientation causes one to
avoid an achievement task due to the sense that one is not capable of successfully completing
the task. Brophy (2005) stated that students with a mastery-avoidance orientation “share an
emphasis on mastery [with the mastery-approach oriented student], but engage in the task
with and emphasis on avoiding mistakes, failures, or diminution of existing skills” (p. 167).
There is very little empirical evidence regarding the impact of mastery-avoidant goals and it
may be difficult to distinguish this type of avoidance orientation from Performance Avoidance
orientation which is discussed later in this manuscript.

A second distinction Elliot (1999) alluded to in mastery orientation is that of task-
referential vs. past-referential orientation. Elliot did not go into great detail into his discussion
of mastery past-referent orientation. What he does say is that the past-referent oriented student
uses past performance as the measure of achievement, and as a scale by which to set new
goals. Whereas mastery task-referential orientation refers to measuring one’s competence ac-
cording to whether one has completed or fully understood the task at hand. Therefore, past-
referential goals are measured by whether one has improved one’s performance or has further
developed one’s skills or knowledge. One might interpret this orientation as intra-personal
competition.
-532- Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, No. 10, Vol 4(3), 2006. ISSN:1696-2095.pp: 529- 550 Christopher Was

Many studies have demonstrated that mastery goals are related to effective cognitive
strategies that involve rehearsal, elaboration, and organization, and meta-cognitive strategies
that involve activities such as planning, monitoring, and regulating cognition. It is the assump-
tion of the current study that students with a mastery task- referent orientation tend to use a
great deal of elaboration and organization of ideas and the meta-cognitive strategies of moni-
toring and regulating. Students who set mastery past-referent goals also use these strategies,
but the mastery past-referent student uses more rehearsal and planning in an attempt to better
themselves in comparison to previous work. In the current study specific items were designed
to tap into the two distinctions described above. However, data analyses of the applied meas-
ure will not attempt to distinguish the two as separate factors because it may be difficult to
separate the two mastery factors due the fact that items refereing to a tendency to seek chal-
lenge, persist longer at challenging tasks, and trying to improve, relate to both past and task
referent mastery. Therefore, in the current measure, a general mastery orientation is captured
by one subscale within the larger measure.

Due to the lack of empirical evidence and the difficulty in separating mastery avoid-
ance and performance avoidance, and the combining of the mastery-past referent and mastery-
task referent orientations the current study focused on the trichotomous framework of achie-
vement goals proposed by Elliot and colleagues (Elliot, 1999; Elliot & C