Content dimensions of achievement goals

There still is no clear consensus about the conceptual definition of performance goals. For example, the goal ´to demonstrate competence' may have a range of different meanings such as overcoming a certain performance level, outperforming others, appearing able, or avoid looking unable.

Various reviews of the literature have identified two main dimensions of performance goals: the appearance dimension and the normative dimension (e.g., Elliot, Reference Elliot, Elliot and Dweck2005; Hulleman et al., Reference Hulleman, Schrager, Bodman and Harackiewicz2010; Urdan, Reference Urdan, Maher and Pintrich1997; Urdan & Mestas, Reference Urdan and Mestas2006). The appearance dimension refers to trying “to look competent”, to approval purposes. The normative dimension is apparent in strivings to “do better than others”, involving competition and social comparison.

Moreover, ideographic goal research relying on the description of what students say when directly asked about their goals, in their own words, in real classroom situations (Lemos, Reference Lemos1996; Lemos & Gonçalves, Reference Lemos and Gonçalves2004), highlighted a specific type of achievement goal related with evaluation concerns, which had not previously been considered in achievement goal theory. This type of achievement goal refers to getting positive (or avoid negative) evaluations, but does not encompass competition or self-presentation (e.g., “to get good grades”).

The pertinence of this type of goals, labeled either as simple evaluation goals, outcome goals or mastery extrinsic goals, has been subsequently acknowledged by different researchers (Grant & Dweck, Reference Grant and Dweck2003; Mouratidis, Lens, & Sideridis, Reference Mouratidis, Lens and Sideridis2010; Tuominen-Soini, Salmela-Aro, & Niemivirta, Reference Tuominen-Soini, Salmela-Aro and Niemivirta2008; Urdan, Reference Urdan, Pintrich and Maehr2004; Urdan & Mestas, Reference Urdan and Mestas2006).

Hence, besides mastery goals and various types of performance-related goals, focused on specific dimensions, it is apparent that students also pursue other achievement related purposes. In their review of the literature, Grant and Dweck (Reference Grant and Dweck2003) documented different subtypes of performance goals, including: 'ability’ goals, focused on validating or demonstrating one’s ability, ‘normative’ goals, focused on the competition-comparison with others, and ‘outcome’ goals, focused on achieving good results. The authors found different effects of ability goals and of normative goals. Only ability goals seemed to have a debilitating effect (after failure), predicting attributions to low ability, decreasing intrinsic motivation, low self-esteem and low achievement. As for the outcome goals, studies showed weak effects which were hypothesized to be because they share characteristics of both mastery goals and performance goals.

Mastery-extrinsic goals were conceptualized as a nuance within mastery goals (Tuominen-Soini et al., Reference Tuominen-Soini, Salmela-Aro and Niemivirta2008). While some mastery-oriented students use intrinsic criteria (mastery-intrinsic goals), mastery-extrinsic goals refer to the will to master a subject or to learn a new thing and to the use of grades or feedback as an external criteria of goal attainment (Niemivirta, Reference Niemivirta2002; Tuominen-Soini et al., Reference Tuominen-Soini, Salmela-Aro and Niemivirta2008). The evidence that mastery-extrinsic orientations shared similar motivational effects with mastery-intrinsic orientations on one-hand, and with performance-approach orientations on the other hand, indicated that similarly to outcome goals, the nature of mastery-extrinsic goals seems to lay between mastery and performance goals.

Thus, at least three subtypes of performance-related goals (i.e., ability goals, normative goals, and simple evaluation goals) should be distinguished, since they represent different specific purposes and seem to have a differential impact on students’ performance.

The relevance of performance goals

A further insight offered by ideographic goal research concerns the incidence of each type of goals in real classroom settings. Studies that used interviewing to elicit the meanings students attach to their goals (e.g., Lemos, Reference Lemos1996; Lemos, Leite, & Lopes, Reference Lemos, Leite and Lopes2007; Mansfield, Reference Mansfield2009; Urdan & Mestas, Reference Urdan and Mestas2006) revealed that students’ strivings mainly consist of goal statements such as getting good grades or avoiding poor grades. Above and beyond competition and self-presentation goals, non-competition, non-presentation, evaluation-related goals are the most frequent performance-related goals spontaneously reported by the students. This more frequently endorsed type of goals (labeled as simple evaluation goals) has been overlooked in achievement goal research. Note that Dweck’s (Grant & Dweck, Reference Grant and Dweck2003) “outcome goals” are more strongly phrased, challenging, and focused on good performance (e.g., “to perform really well”, “it is very important to me to do well…”), than simple evaluation goals, which are phrased more vaguely and seem to represent conformity with classroom minimal demands (e.g., “to get good grades”, “not to fail”).

Based on the relatively low natural incidence of competition and self-presentation, concerns have been raised about the degree to which students generate competitive goals spontaneously (Brophy, Reference Brophy2005). Traditional goal research focusing on competitive goals may have overly restricted the conceptual field of students' goals related to school performance. Given the different possible specific meanings that may be comprised within performance goals, research should acknowledge a larger variety of performance-related goals, in particular, including students’ simple evaluation goals, their nature and their role in motivating students’ learning and achievement.

The distinction between aims and reasons

Another approach to the clarification of the achievement goal construct and its associated outcomes is founded in the distinction between aims and reasons. Generally, goal theorists presuppose a link between goals and more basic psychological needs. The idea is that needs or motives (reasons) underlie specific concrete goals (aims), which make the cognitive mediation between more general motives and specific behaviors (Elliot & Church, Reference Elliot and Church1997; Elliot & Thrash, Reference Elliot and Thrash2001; Shan & Kruglanski, Reference Shan, Kruglanski, Boekaerts, Pintrich and Zeidner2000).

Basic psychological needs (e.g., the need for achievement) are viewed as providing the energization of goal-directed behavior. On the other hand, specific goals (the aim) provide direction, guiding behavior toward the accomplishment of needs or motives (Deci & Ryan, Reference Deci and Ryan2000; Ryan, Sheldon, Kasser, & Deci, Reference Ryan, Sheldon, Kasser, Deci, Gollwitzer and Bargh1996).

Observing that a goal or purpose can be defined in two ways – as an intended aim and as the reason behind the aim – goal theorists (Elliot, Reference Elliot, Elliot and Dweck2005; Elliot & Thrash, Reference Elliot and Thrash2001; Pintrich, Reference Pintrich2000) proposed an hierarchical model of achievement goals in which reasons (at the top level of the hierarchy) underlie more specific aims (at the bottom level). Most theorists have construed and measured achievement goals as a combination of aims and reasons, thus confounding the dimensions responsible for their effects (is it the reason or the aim?). The undifferentiated use of the goal concept (as reasons and as aims) might explain the mixed empirical results concerning the effects of performance goals.

In this line of thinking, those authors suggested a more precise and restrictive definition of the achievement goal construct as representing the aim to attain competence, “… extricating achievement goals from the reasons that they are being pursued for…” (Elliot & Thrash, Reference Elliot and Thrash2001, p. 144), such as to demonstrate competence to others or winning parents’ acceptance. Based on this reasoning, Elliot and collaborators advocated the measurement of goals and motives independently.

One concern to espousing this strategy is that performance goals extricated from the underlying reasons will be largely devoid of their meaning and consequently drained of their motivational power. Moreover, needs alone do not operate detached from a goal. When a need is not converted into 'something realistic to be done or achieved'- i.e., a goal- it creates a vague motivational state, a condition of helplessness (Nuttin, Reference Nuttin1984). Instead, as it is recognized by goal theorists, needs and goals “work closely together …The underlying reason is not left behind once it prompted goal adoption; rather it exerts its influence throughout the process of goal pursuit” (Elliot & Thrash, Reference Elliot and Thrash2001, p. 147).

In this sense, assessing goals alone may set up a misleading methodological artifice, by ignoring or eluding, rather than separating, the reasons or motives that are necessarily attached to the goals. An integrated assessment of goals, implying both reasons and purposes, also avoids the assumption that reasons represent the “real” motive behind the specific, conscious, “apparent” goals. Alternatively, an integrated assessment accounts for a conceptualization of goals as specific, concrete manifestations of more basic psychological needs (e.g., the need for achievement, the motive to avoid failure, the need for competence), deriving their motivating power from the need they are linked to but also from the specific goal-object.

In sum, in the present article it is argued that it is preferable to adopt an integrated approach to the disentangling of different types of achievement goals and its effects.

Dimensions organizing students’ goal pursuits at different grade-levels

Research has also attended to the role of the school context and of students’ age in determining students’ achievement goals and the effects of those goals (Matos, Lens, & Vansteenkiste, Reference Matos, Lens, Vansteenkiste, Kaplan, Karabenick and De Groot2009). It seems plausible that at different levels of schooling both individual developmental processes and contextual changes in the structure and dynamics of the school and classroom environment may accentuate or, conversely, attenuate the salience, distinctiveness and relevance of different achievement related dimensions such as mastery/learning, competition self-presentation/validation, evaluation, and approach/ avoidance tendencies.

For example, Urdan, Kneisel, and Mason (Reference Urdan, Kneisel, Mason and Urdan1999) evidenced that older students interpreted the performance-goal messages from their teachers differently than did younger students, who are less likely to interpret these messages in terms of performance goals. Other studies however have suggested that both younger and older children are susceptible to the effects of induced performance goals (Cain & Dweck, Reference Cain and Dweck1995; Smiley & Dweck, Reference Smiley and Dweck1994) although younger children seem to show a more general concern about self-worth in terms of “goodness” and “badness” (Burhans & Dweck, Reference Burhans and Dweck1995).

Age related cognitive shifts in conceptions of ability may also affect the focus of students’ concerns. According to Nicholls, only by adolescence students differentiate ability from effort, viewing ability as a fixed capacity (Nicholls, Reference Nicholls1984; Nicholls & Miller, Reference Nicholls and Miller1983, Reference Nicholls, Miller and Nicholls1984). These developmental differences are likely to impact which achievement related dimensions are attended to and affect students.

Also the context may influence which notion of ability will be used by students. There is evidence that the learning environment becomes more performance-focused when students move up in grade level (see Eccles & Midgley, Reference Eccles, Midgley, Ames and Ames1989; Harackiewicz, Barron, & Elliot, Reference Harackiewicz, Barron and Elliot1998; Midgley, Reference Midgley, Maehr and Pintrich1993; Stipek, Reference Stipek, Wigfield and Eccles2002), and this may imply that performance goals could be more adaptive in competitive contexts and for older students (Midgley et al., Reference Midgley, Kaplan and Middleton2001).

Thus, both age and co-occurring changes across school level will probably influence the dimensions organizing students’ goal pursuits as well as their effects.

Whereas research has reported differences in the relative endorsement of the different types of goals at different levels of schooling (see for example, Anderman, Austin, & Johnson, Reference Anderman, Austin, Johnson, Wigfield and Eccles2002), the present study analysed not only mean level differences in students’ achievement goals, but also differences in the dimensions organizing students’ achievement goals across school levels (middle school – grades 5^th and 6^th – and junior high school – grades 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th).

Aims of the study

The actuality and pertinence of the debate about the nature and dimensions of achievement goals, their distinctiveness and effects is well reflected in the rather recent revisions of achievement goal theory (e.g., Brophy, Reference Brophy2005; Hulleman et al., Reference Hulleman, Schrager, Bodman and Harackiewicz2010; Kaplan & Maehr, Reference Kaplan and Maehr2007; Urdan & Mestas, Reference Urdan and Mestas2006) and in goal research (e.g., Elliot & Murayama, Reference Elliot and Murayama2008).

The aim of the present study was to contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature and dimensions involved in the goals that students pursue at school, expecting to lead to a more differentiated empirical definition of achievement goals.

The study tried to get a better understanding of students’ achievement goals by looking at goals that do not necessarily fit in the mastery-performance dimension. The aim is also to analyze goals which are pertinent to achievement striving but do not revolve around the self-presentation and competition dimensions. Moreover, instead of selecting pure competition and pure self-presentation goal items, and analyzing their distinctiveness and relations, this study added several hybrid goal items. In this sense, the present study expands Grant and Dweck’s (Reference Grant and Dweck2003) reasoning that goal combinations may be more ecologically valid, better reflecting students’ typical goal pursuits. To this effect, the three main goal dimensions referred in the achievement goal literature – competition, presentation, and goal valence – were systematically combined to form various types of achievement goals. Therefore, the eight resulting types of achievement goals represent a more extended operationalization of achievement goals, supporting the argument by Kaplan and Maehr (Reference Kaplan and Maehr2007) for the need to enhance the phenomenological realism of the achievement goal construct.

More specifically, the main aims of this study were: (a) to contribute to a deeper understanding of the conceptual and empirical scope of achievement goals, trying to establish the distinction and relevance of competition, and self-presentation dimensions potentially involved in those goals (b) to test the empirical distinction between approach and avoidance achievement goals in the academic context, and (c) to analyze the extent to which competition and self-presentation dimensions are implied in the three types of goals traditionally assessed in goal research (mastery goals, performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals). Considering the role of school grade-related factors the present study also (d) analyzed differences in the dimensionality of achievement goals across different levels of schooling.