Goals

Motives as goals

One way motives vary is by the kind of goals that students set for themselves, and by how the goals support students’ academic achievement. As you mightsuspect, some goals encourage academic achievement more than others, but even motives that do not concern academics explicitly tend to affect learningindirectly.

Goals that contribute to achievement

What kinds of achievement goals do students hold? Imagine three individuals, Maria, Sara, and Lindsay, who are taking algebra together. Maria’s mainconcern is to learn the material as well as possible because she finds it interesting and because she believes it will be useful to her in later courses,perhaps at university. Hers is a mastery goal because she wants primarily to learn or master the material. Sara, however, is concerned less about algebrathan about getting top marks on the exams and in the course. Hers is a performance goal because she is focused primarily on looking successful;learning algebra is merely a vehicle for performing well in the eyes of peers and teachers. Lindsay, for her part, is primarily concerned about avoiding apoor or failing mark. Hers is a performance-avoidance goal because she is not really as concerned about learning algebra, as Maria is, or about competitive success, as Sara is; she is simply intending to avoidfailure.

As you might imagine, mastery and performance goals often are not experienced in pure form, but in combinations. If you play the clarinet in the school band,you might want to improve your technique simply because you enjoy playing as well as possible—essentially a mastery orientation. But you might alsowant to look talented in the eyes of classmates—a performance orientation. Another part of what you may wish, at least privately, is to avoidlooking like a complete failure at playing the clarinet. One of these motives may predominate over the others, but they all may be present.

Mastery goals tend to be associated with enjoyment of learning the material at hand, and in this sense represent an outcome that teachers often seek for students. Bydefinition therefore they are a form of intrinsic motivation. As such mastery goals have been found to be better than performance goals at sustaining students’ interest in a subject. In one review of researchabout learning goals, for example, students with primarily mastery orientations toward a course they were taking not only tended to express greater interest inthe course, but also continued to express interest well beyond the official end of the course, and to enroll in further courses in the same subject(Harackiewicz, et al., 2002; Wolters, 2004).

Performance goals , on the other hand, imply extrinsic motivation, and tend to show the mixed effects of this orientation. A positive effect is that students with a performance orientation do tend to get higher grades thanthose who express primarily a mastery orientation. The advantage in grades occurs both in the short term (with individual assignments) and in the longterm (with overall grade point average when graduating). But there is evidence that performance oriented students do not actually learn material as deeply orpermanently as students who are more mastery oriented (Midgley, Kaplan,&Middleton, 2001). A possible reason is that measures of performance—such as test scores—often reward relatively shallow memorization ofinformation and therefore guide performance-oriented students away from processing the information thoughtfully or deeply. Another possible reason isthat a performance orientation, by focusing on gaining recognition as the best among peers, encourages competition among peers. Giving and receiving help fromclassmates is thus not in the self-interest of a performance-oriented student, and the resulting isolation limits the student’s learning.

Social goals

Most students need and value relationships, both with classmates and with teachers, and often (though not always) they get a good deal of positivesupport from the relationships. But the effects of social relationships are complex, and at times can work both for and against academic achievement. If arelationship with the teacher is important and reasonably positive, then the student is likely to try pleasing the teacher by working hard on assignments(Dowson&McInerney, 2003). Note, though, that this effect is closer to performance than mastery; the student is primarily concerned about looking goodto someone else. If, on the other hand, a student is especially concerned about relationships with peers, the effects on achievement depend on thestudent’s motives for the relationship, as well as on peers’ attitudes. Desiring to be close to peers personally may lead a student to askfor help from, and give help to peers—a behavior that may support higherachievement, at least up to a point. But desiring to impress peers with skills and knowledge may lead to the opposite: as we already mentioned, thecompetitive edge of such a performance orientation may keep the student from collaborating, and in this indirect way reduce a student’s opportunitiesto learn. The abilities and achievement motivation of peers themselves can also make a difference, but once again the effects vary depending on the context.Low achievement and motivation by peers affects an individual’s academic motivation more in elementary school than in high school, more in learningmathematics than learning to read, and more if there is a wide range of abilities in a classroom than if there is a more narrow range (Burke&Sass, 2006).