Author(s):
Teresa Gonçalves 
; Marina Serra de Lemos
Date: 2007
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10216/15641
Origin: Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto
Document details
Exploring the nature of achievement goals through their relations with school-r...
Description
Achievement goals have been related to different patterns of behavior, cognition and affect, which may enhance or debilitate learning and performance (eg. Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996). In particular, mastery and performance goals have been differentially related to perceived competence and to capacity versus effort attributions. However, while mastery goals have been defined similarly and have evidenced consistent effects on outcomes, there is still some controversy about a distinction between approach- and avoidance-performance goals and their differential effects on motivation and achievement (Harackiewicz et al., 2002; Midgley et al., 2001). The aim of the present study was to highlight the nature of the different achievement goals through the exploration of their relations with a multidimensional concept of perceived competence, which separately considers general control-expectancy beliefs, agency beliefs and attributions for different causes (Skinner et al., 1988). Participants were 484 9th grade students who completed the personal goals subscale of PALS (Midgley et al., 2000) and the CAMI instrument (Skinner et al., 1988). Correlational analysis showed that mastery goals were consistently related to general control-expectations, perceived access to effort, to teachers’ help, to luck and to capacity, as well as attributions to effort, i.e., a positive perceived-control profile. Performance-approach and avoidance goals evidenced very similar relations with perceived ability and with attributions of results both to ability and luck, i.e., a less positive perceived-control profile. In sum, results support a clear distinction between mastery and performance goals (both approach and avoidance) as they hold differential relations with control-beliefs profiles. Moreover, results showed that approach- and avoidance-performance goals share very similar relations with a negative perceived-control profile.
Achievement goals have been related to different patterns of behavior, cognition and affect, which may enhance or debilitate learning and performance (eg. Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996). In particular, mastery and performance goals have been differentially related to perceived competence and to capacity versus effort attributions. However, while mastery goals have been defined similarly and have evidenced consistent effects on outcomes, there is still some controversy about a distinction between approach- and avoidance-performance goals and their differential effects on motivation and achievement (Harackiewicz et al., 2002; Midgley et al., 2001). The aim of the present study was to highlight the nature of the different achievement goals through the exploration of their relations with a multidimensional concept of perceived competence, which separately considers general control-expectancy beliefs, agency beliefs and attributions for different causes (Skinner et al., 1988). Participants were 484 9th grade students who completed the personal goals subscale of PALS (Midgley et al., 2000) and the CAMI instrument (Skinner et al., 1988). Correlational analysis showed that mastery goals were consistently related to general control-expectations, perceived access to effort, to teachers’ help, to luck and to capacity, as well as attributions to effort, i.e., a positive perceived-control profile. Performance-approach and avoidance goals evidenced very similar relations with perceived ability and with attributions of results both to ability and luck, i.e., a less positive perceived-control profile. In sum, results support a clear distinction between mastery and performance goals (both approach and avoidance) as they hold differential relations with control-beliefs profiles. Moreover, results showed that approach- and avoidance-performance goals share very similar relations with a negative perceived-control profile.
Document Type
Conference Object
Language English
Language English
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