What Are Students Really Trying to Achieve?

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What Are Students Really Trying to Achieve?

Educational Psychology · Chapter 6: Motivation, Goals, and the Drive to LearnSection 6.6 · lesson 53 of 1008 min · free with a free account

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Earn 3 college credits for Educational PsychologyRecommended for credit by NCCRS · Psychology 120 · self-paced · one payment, lifetime access
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In this lesson

Mastery and performance orientations, and goals that actually work.

  • Distinguish mastery from performance goal orientations
  • Describe the four orientations in the approach-avoidance framework
  • Explain self-handicapping as protective behavior
  • Apply SMART and proximal goal-setting as a taught skill

Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,061 words). Read along, or search it.

Motivation, Goals, and the Drive to Learn

What Are Students Really Trying to Achieve?

Two students work equally hard on the same assignment. One is trying to understand it. The other is trying not to look stupid. Those are different activities, and they produce different learning. This section covers goal orientation theory. We will separate mastery goals from performance goals. Then split each of those into approach and avoidance versions. We will look at self-handicapping, which is more rational than it appears. Then at SMART goals, and the goal-setting research behind them. And at how a classroom's goal structure gets set. Often by what a teacher stops doing, rather than what they add.

Goal Orientation

Different Purposes, Same Task

Goal orientation theory was developed in the eighties and nineties. By Carol Dweck, Eliot Ames, and others. It proposes that students pursue tasks with different motivational purposes. Different orientations, underneath identical-looking work. And an orientation shapes three things. How students approach challenges. How they respond to failure. And how they define success in the first place. The fundamental distinction is between two kinds of goal. A mastery goal focuses on developing competence and improving skills. Success means learning more than you knew before. A performance goal focuses on demonstrating competence relative to others. Success means outperforming peers, or not appearing less capable.

The Evidence

What Each Orientation Produces

The research on these two is consistent. Mastery-oriented students use deeper processing strategies. They display greater persistence. They seek help more readily. And they report higher intrinsic motivation and well-being. Performance-oriented students split into two groups. The damaging version focuses on avoiding negative judgments. Those students use surface-level strategies. They disengage from challenging tasks. And they avoid seeking help, because asking signals incompetence. Performance-approach goals are different, and less bad. Outperforming others in a positive sense can produce high achievement. Sometimes at the cost of deeper understanding and intrinsic interest.

The 2x2

Four Orientations, Not Two

Crossing the two distinctions gives four orientations. Mastery-approach focuses on learning and improvement. Faced with failure, those students increase effort and seek help. The long-term outcome is intrinsic motivation and conceptual mastery. Mastery-avoidance focuses on avoiding failure to master something. Faced with failure, distress and repeated review. The outcome is moderate, and can tip into perfectionism. Performance-approach focuses on outperforming peers. Faced with failure, they attribute it to task difficulty. The outcome is high grades, with fragile confidence underneath. And performance-avoidance focuses on avoiding looking incompetent. Faced with failure, they disengage and self-handicap. The outcome is low motivation, anxiety, and dropout risk.

Self-Handicapping

Protecting an Excuse in Advance

Self-handicapping deserves a slower look. It means deliberately creating obstacles to your own performance. In order to protect self-esteem in case of failure. The student who does not study before an important test. The student who leaves an essay until the last night. From outside, that looks like carelessness. From inside, it is rational. It builds an explanation in advance. Now failure says something about effort, rather than about ability. And for a performance-avoidance student, that is a much safer verdict. Which is why telling them to try harder rarely works. Trying hard removes the protection they were carefully maintaining.

Key Idea

Classroom Goal Structure

Here is the key idea, and it is about the room rather than the student. Classrooms that emphasize mastery, improvement and personal best produce different students from classrooms emphasizing social comparison and normative grades. Deeper learning. Greater resilience. Stronger intrinsic motivation. And here is the part that closes the argument. Those benefits appear even when standardized achievement levels are similar. The same measured outcome. Reached with a completely different relationship to the work. That qualification removes the usual objection. A mastery structure is not trading results for wellbeing. You are not choosing between happy students and successful ones.

In Practice

Replacing Rankings With Personal Bests

Here is a goal structure being changed by one decision. A middle school teacher stops putting class rankings on test papers. In their place she writes personal improvement scores. Each score shows the result against that student's own prior best. Two things happen at once. Social comparison is removed. Individual progress is highlighted. Within a semester, students report two changes. Greater willingness to ask questions. And greater willingness to attempt challenging problems. Meanwhile, fewer students engage in grade-comparison behaviors. One change to a piece of paper, altering what success means in that room.

SMART Goals

A Structure for Goal Setting

Goal orientation describes the quality of goal pursuit. SMART goal-setting provides a structure for the goals themselves. The acronym has five parts. Specific. Describe exactly what is to be accomplished, and how. Measurable. Include criteria for assessing progress. Achievable. Challenging enough to generate effort. And realistic enough to sustain hope, which is the harder half. Relevant. Connect to meaningful values and broader objectives. Time-bound. Include deadlines that create productive urgency. None of those five is exotic. And most student goals fail at least three of them.

Locke And Latham

Specific and Challenging Beats Do Your Best

Research by Locke and Latham established the underlying finding. Specific, challenging goals produce higher performance. Higher than vague goals, such as do your best. And higher than no goals at all. So consider what happens when a broad aspiration gets translated. Get better at math becomes something specific. Complete five practice problems daily, and review the errors. That is a proximal goal, and three things follow from it. The student develops a clearer action plan. They experience more frequent success milestones. And they maintain motivation over longer periods. The vague version offers none of those, at any level of sincerity.

Teach It

Setting Goals Is a Skill

There is a distinction here that changes everything. Teaching goal-setting as an explicit skill is not the same as assigning goals. And the difference is high leverage for self-regulation. An assigned goal is someone else's plan, executed. A goal a student can construct is a capability. They take it to the next task, and to every task after that. Proximal goals are the key mechanism inside this. A short-term goal provides feedback along the way. And it sustains motivation toward a more distant goal. Which is why get better at math reliably fails. And why a daily practice target does not.

Five Moves

Promoting Mastery Goals

Five moves promote mastery goals in a classroom. Design tasks with inherent interest and real intellectual challenge. Evaluate on personal improvement and effort, alongside achievement. Reduce public comparisons. Emphasize what students are learning, not only the grade they received. And teach students to set proximal SMART goals, and monitor progress. Now notice something about that list. Three of the five involve removing something. Comparison. Grade emphasis. And assigned goals. A classroom's goal structure is often shaped more by subtraction. By what a teacher stops doing, than by anything they add.

About Educational Psychology at UPI Study

Educational Psychology (Psychology 120) is a self-paced online course of 100 video lessons in 11 chapters, from memory, conditioning and child development to motivation, individual differences, assessment, instruction and educational technology. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.

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Why take it here

Why students take Educational Psychology with UPI Study

How people learn, and how to teach themEducational Psychology explains how students learn, develop and stay motivated, and how teachers assess and support them. It is a standard course in education and teaching degrees and a common psychology elective.
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130,000+students helped with college creditsACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Where the credit goes

Universities that work with NCCRS

Educational Psychology carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Thomas Edison State UniversityThomas Edison State UniversitySigned partnerUniversity of the PeopleUniversity of the PeopleSigned partnerCharter Oak State CollegeCharter Oak State CollegeSigned partnerStrayer UniversityStrayer UniversitySigned partnerColumbia Southern UniversityColumbia Southern UniversitySigned partnerIndiana TechIndiana TechSigned partnerPenn StatePenn StateWorks with NCCRSSouthern New Hampshire UniversitySouthern New Hampshire UniversityWorks with NCCRSSUNYSUNYWorks with NCCRS +many more cooperating universitiesFind my college →

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About What Are Students Really Trying to Achieve?

What is the difference between mastery goals and performance goals?
A mastery goal focuses on developing competence, so success means learning more than you knew before. A performance goal focuses on showing competence relative to others, so success means outperforming peers or not looking less capable. Research associates mastery goals with deeper processing, greater persistence, readier help-seeking and higher intrinsic motivation. Goal orientation theory grew out of work by Carol Dweck and others.
What are the four goal orientations in the approach-avoidance framework?
The four orientations are mastery-approach, mastery-avoidance, performance-approach and performance-avoidance, formed by crossing mastery and performance goals with approach and avoidance. Mastery-approach aims to learn and improve; mastery-avoidance aims to avoid failing to master something and can tip into perfectionism; performance-approach aims to outperform peers, often with high grades but fragile confidence; and performance-avoidance aims to avoid looking incompetent, which is linked to disengagement, anxiety and self-handicapping.
What is self-handicapping in students?
Self-handicapping is deliberately creating obstacles to your own performance to protect self-esteem in case of failure, such as not studying for an important test or leaving an essay until the last night. It looks careless but builds an excuse in advance, so failure reflects effort rather than ability. It is common with performance-avoidance goals, which is why simply telling such students to try harder rarely works.
Why are SMART goals more effective than "do your best"?
SMART goals work better because specific, challenging goals produce higher performance than vague "do your best" goals or no goals, a finding established by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham. SMART means specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Turning "get better at math" into "complete five practice problems daily and review the errors" creates a proximal goal with a clear plan, frequent success milestones and longer-lasting motivation.

About the Educational Psychology course

How many college credits is Educational Psychology?
Educational Psychology (Psychology 120) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
How much does Educational Psychology cost and what is included?
$250, paid once, with lifetime access: all 100 video lessons, a practice quiz after each, the graded work and final exam, and an official transcript when you finish. Students who want several courses choose UPI Study PRO instead.
Which universities accept UPI Study credits?
UPI Study has signed partner agreements with universities such as Thomas Edison State University, University of the People and Charter Oak State College, and works with universities such as Penn State, SNHU and SUNY. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities. Use "Find my college" on this page to check yours.
How long does Educational Psychology take?
It is self-paced with no deadlines. The 100 lessons total about 15 hours of video; most students add reading and practice time and finish in a few weeks to a few months, on their own schedule.
How are the exams done?
Quizzes and assignments are online in the course. The final exam is taken online with proctoring; a person on the UPI Study team checks assignments, usually within two days.
How do my credits reach my college?
When the course shows 100% complete, request the official transcript from your dashboard. It is sent to the college you name, and you can send it to more than one. Check your college first with "Find my college" on this page, or ask Athena.

Ready for the full course? Earn 3 credits in Educational Psychology.

100 video lessons, a quiz after each one, and the graded work that earns the credit. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.

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Educational Psychology
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