The work of early goal theorists contrasted two types of goal orientations: mastery, which is a desire to acquire additional knowledge or master new skills, and performance, which is a desire to demonstrate high ability and make a good impression. Recent works of goal theorists have incorporated a second dimension of goal orientations: approach and avoidance.
Mastery-oriented goals are defined in terms of a focus on learning, mastering the task according to self-set standards or self-improvement. It also encompasses developing new skills, improving or developing competence, trying to accomplish something challenging and trying to gain an understanding or insight.
Performance-oriented goals represent a focus on demonstrating competence or ability and how ability will be judged relative to others. For example, trying to surpass normative performance standards, attempting to best others, using casual comparative standards or striving to be the best in a group or even avoiding judgments of low ability or appearing dumb are examples of performance-oriented goals.
Approach-oriented goals are goals in which individuals are positively motivated to look good and receive favorable judgment from others.
Avoidance-oriented goals are goals in which individuals can be negatively motivated to try to avoid failure and to avoid looking incompetent.
Let's explore these concepts and incorporate the second dimension of approach and avoidance. We are joining Jack in his freshman anatomy and physiology class.
For a mastery approach example, Jack's goal in the class is to learn all of the features of the human body because he is interested in anatomy and physiology and wants to be able to build his base knowledge of these principles.
For a mastery avoidance example, Ashley's goal in class is to avoid misunderstanding the features of a human body and principles of human physiology as presented to her by her teacher.
For an example of performance approach, Hillary's goal in class is to identify all of the bones, muscles and tissues in the human body more quickly and better than her classmates.
And for performance avoidance, Max's goal in class is to avoid appearing incompetent at identifying anatomy or applying principles of physiology.
It is important to note that students can hold multiple goals simultaneously; thus, it is possible for a student to be both mastery-approach-oriented and performance-approach-oriented. Such a student truly wants to learn and master the material but is also concerned with appearing more competent than others.
Researchers agree that mastery goals are more productive than performance goals, and approach goals are more productive than avoidance goals. Controversy has arisen, however, about whether performance-approach goals should be considered productive and recommended by teachers as a complement to mastery-approach goals.
This four-dimensional perspective of goal orientation led to the multiple goals perspective in which learners match their goals to their situations and coordinate their goals to pursue multiple goals efficiently and minimize the occurrence of goals that contrast with one another. Researchers assume that students will pursue mastery goals when they value the content and are taught in ways that promote processing strategies, and they will pursue performance goals when there is an emphasis on competition necessary to earn good grades.
Multiple Goals Dilemma
There are concerns with pursuing multiple goals at one time. First, the value of goal coordination is emphasized where students may want to pursue both mastery and performance goals along with social goals, such as pleasing parents and teachers and maintaining social relationships. This can get very complicated and students may worry about the consequences of failure.
A second concern is that struggling students will find goal coordination difficult because maintaining mastery goals requires the students to work harder - but the hard work might not pay off if the teacher grades on a curve.
A third concern is that addressing multiple goals simultaneously is difficult in reality.
Influences on Goal Orientation
Research suggests the instructional practices that are used in classrooms and schools have a big impact on the types of goal orientations that students adopt in a classroom. For example, if a teacher talks about and focuses on mastery and improvement, then students are likely to adopt mastery goals. However, if a teacher constantly talks about grades, test scores and who is doing the best (or the worst) in a class, then students are likely to adopt performance goals.
In addition, practices that are used by the school as a whole can influence the adoption of mastery or performance goals. For example, many schools place much emphasis on the importance of honor roll. In many schools, students' names are even placed on a wall that indicates that they're on the honor roll. When schools emphasize ability differences, students are likely to adopt performance goals and to perceive that the school is performance-oriented.
Parents can also influence students' goal orientations. Parental emphasis on the importance of grades and high test scores may lead children to become performance-oriented students.
Educational Outcomes of Goals
Mastery and performance goals are related to various educational outcomes in important ways. When students adopt either mastery or performance goals, predictable outcomes often result.
When students report being mastery-oriented, they persist longer at academic tasks, they are more engaged with their work, they use more effective cognitive processing strategies and they report lower levels of self-handicapping behaviors.
In general, results indicate that performance goals are not related to adaptive outcomes; more specifically, studies indicate that performance-avoidance goals are related to poor academic behavior, low levels of academic engagement and avoidance behaviors, such as self-handicapping.
Lesson Summary
In summary, needs and goals direct the behavior of a student. Goals can direct achievement and classroom behavior in many ways. Depending on the type of goal (mastery or performance), the student will be focused on learning and mastering new tasks or will be focused on demonstrating competence based on how they will be judged by others, or possibly a combination of both.
Researchers have suggested mastery goals are more productive in the classroom than performance goals. Additionally, trying to pursue multiple goal orientations at the same time can be challenging and counterproductive.
Goal orientation can be influenced by social contexts, such as the classroom, the school, parents, siblings and teachers.
Learning Outcomes
After watching this lesson, you should be able to:
- Define need, goal orientation theory, core goal and proximal goal
- Explain mastery-, performance-, approach- and avoidance-oriented goals as well as how they can be combined
- Summarize the issues with multiple goals at one time
- Discuss why mastery-oriented goals are considered better
- Identify some factors that influence the type of goals a student has
