When pursuing mastery goals, the student wants to develop competence by acquiring new skills and

knowledge. They value and are willing to undertake activities that allow them to improve their
knowledge, and they perceive effort as a positive, effective way to achieve their goals. Mistakes are
considered a normal step in the learning process (Bouffard and Couture, 2003, p. 21).

In contrast, students pursuing performance goals are more concerned with demonstrating their abilities
relative to other students. Here, efforts are perceived negatively. Students with a performance goal see
intelligence as fixed, avoid challenging tasks in an effort to avoid negative evaluations, are less likely to
be intrinsically motivated, and consider errors as indicative of a lack of ability (Gonzalez et al., 2001, p.
182).

Besides mastery and performance orientation, some authors also distinguish a work-avoidance orientation
(Meece et al., 1988; Meece and Holt, 1993). Students with a work-avoidance orientation try to avoid
failure even without hard work, so achievement is represented as completing a task with as little effort as
possible.

Generally it is assumed that students are more satisfied and achieve better performance if they pursue a
mastery orientation or a more intrinsic motivation (e.g., Fortune et al., 2005).

Students with a mastery orientation seem to be more willing to pursue challenging tasks, have positive
feelings towards the learning situation, and exhibit an adaptive attributional pattern (Ames and Archer,
1988; Dweck, 1988). Mastery goal orientation is often linked to long-term and high-quality involvement
in learning. Performance goals, in contrast, are hypothesized to be associated with negative outcomes,
such as surface processing of study material or reduced task enjoyment. Many works therefore suggest
that students should be encouraged to adopt mastery goals and minimize their adoption of performance
goals (e.g., Ames, 1992)

Students with a performance/mastery orientation engaged more frequently in integrative learning, applied
deep learning strategies more often, spent more effort preparing for classes, and were more actively
involved in teamwork than students with a mastery orientation. Mastery and performance/mastery
students were more similar in terms of academic engagement, while students with a work-
avoidance/performance orientation paid the least attention to integrative learning, effort, and deep
learning. The results coincide in general terms with those observed in most studies (e.g., Meece, 1994;
Seifert, 1995; Valle et al., 2003), thus confirming that the group focused on learning and the group with a
performance/mastery orientation both present a similar engagement in academic issues.

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED502877.pdf (Dr. Heinke Roebken, February 2007)

One orientation, called learning, task involved, or mastery goal orientation, means that the child is
focused
on improving their skills, mastering material, and learning new things. Questions such as ‘‘How
can I do this task?” and ‘‘What will I learn?” reflect mastery goals. The second goal orientation, called
performance or ego orientation, means that the child focuses on maximizing favorable evaluations of
their competence and minimizing negative evaluations of competence. Questions such as ‘‘Am I doing
this task better than my friend?” and ‘‘Does completing this task make me look smart?” reflect
performance
goals. Nicholls and his colleagues (e.g., Nicholls, Cobb, Wood, Yackel, & Patashnick, 1990;
Nicholls, Cobb, Yackel, Wood, & Wheatley, 1990) and Meece (1991, 1994) also have described a work
avoidant goal orientation, which means that the child does not wish to engage in academic activities.
This orientation has received less research attention compared to the other two, although Harackiewicz
and her colleagues have been researching it in college students (Harackiewicz, Durik, Barron,
Linnenbrink-Garcia, & Tauer, 2008; Hulleman, Durik, Schweigert, & Harackiewicz, 2008).

The different terms used to label the first two goal orientations occurred because different researchers
were working on them simultaneously, with each having a somewhat distinctive view of each orientation
(see Pintrich (2000a) and Thorkildsen and Nicholls (1998) for discussion of the intellectual roots of
different researchers’ definitions of these goal orientations). For instance, Dweck and Leggett (1988)
proposed that children’s goal orientations stem from their theories of intelligence. Children believing
intelligence is malleable tend to hold a learning (mastery) goal orientation, and children adopting the
entity view take on performance goals; we return to this point below. By contrast, Ames (1992) focused
primarily on classroom antecedents of these goal orientations, rather than characteristics of children,
which implies that goal orientations are more a product of context rather than the person, and so may vary
more widely across different achievement situations. We acknowledge that the different terminology used
by these theorists reflects some important distinctions in the conceptualization of these goal orientations,
but also believe that the similarities are stronger than the distinctions between them (see Midgley, Kaplan,
and Middleton (2001) and Pintrich (2000a) for a similar conclusion). We will use the terms mastery and
performance goal orientations in this chapter, except when discussing Nicholls and colleagues’ work on
developing measures of task and ego orientation.

Although we recognize there is now a wide range of dimensions subsumed under the goal theory
framework, the orientations that are consistently used in the research continue to be the classic two—
mastery orientation and performance orientation. Indeed, recent research has suggested that the breadth of
the goal theory dimensions can devolve to these two primary orientations (Marsh, Craven, Hinkley, &
Debus, 2003). Moreover, seminal integrative reviews of goal theory also tend to dichotomize the bulk of
discussion in terms of mastery and performance goals (e.g., see Pintrich, 2003b). Studies of goal
orientation have typically contrasted performance and mastery orientations and demonstrated that the two
differentially influence students’ application of effort, their perceptions of what it takes to do well, and
their perceptions of personal competence. For example, according to Treasure and Roberts (1994), for the
mastery-oriented individual ‘‘the demonstration of ability is based on maximum effort and is self-
referenced’’ (p. 16), whereas for the performance-oriented individual the focus is on ‘‘demonstrating
ability by being successful with minimum effort and by outperforming
others’’ (p. 16).

https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp.../Wigfield-Cambria-2010.pdf (Allan Wigfield*, Jenna Cambria, 2010)

The theory posits that students can have either performance goals or mastery goals. The two goals are
seen as generating two distinct frameworks for processing information. Mastery goals allow individuals
to seek opportunities to increase their competence and master new challenges (Dweck, 2000). Students
who pursue mastery goals are concerned with developing their ability over time and acquiring the
skills needed to master a particular task. When individuals with mastery goals experience failure they
interpret the event as providing information regarding their effort in that particular situation and attribute
failure to a lack of effort or ineffective strategy use (Dweck. 2000; Elliot & Dweck, 1988).

Previous research has shown that those who pursue mastery goals tend to seek more challenges, have
higher reported use of effective learning strategies, including metacognitive strategies, report more
positive attitudes towards school, and have a higher level of self-efficacy (belief in one’s ability to
succeed in a given situation) than those individuals who pursue performance goals (Ames, 1992; Ames &
Archer, 1988; Elliot & Dweck, 1988; Middletown & Midgley, 1997; Pintrich, 2000; Wolters, 2004).
Performance goals encourage individuals to seek and maintain a positive image of their ability. Students
achieve this end by pursuing one of two types of performance goals. Initially performance goals (as a
whole) were seen as being maladaptive for learning. However, recent researchers have posited that the
outcomes related to performance goals categorized as being approach (demonstrating ability) are different
than outcomes related to performance goals categorized as being avoidance (avoidance demonstrating
lack of ability) (Church, Elliot, & Gable, 2001; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996). For example,
performanceapproach goals are related to more positive outcomes, such as use of cognitive strategies
(Pintrich, 2000; Wolters, Yu, & Pintrich, 1996), and course achievement (Church, et al., 2001; Elliot &
Church, 1997; Harackiewicz, et al., 2000) while performanceavoidance goals are related to negative
outcomes (superficial learning strategies, lower performance, selfhandicapping behavior, undermined
intrinsic motivation).

While mastery goals help promote interest, performance-approach goals work to promote higher
levels of performance. When mastery goals are coupled with performance-approach goals students not
only have a desire to increase their competence, but also to demonstrate their ability and thus perform
well in evaluative situations (Barron & Harackiewicz, 2001).

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.518.1300&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Rebecca A.
Mattern, 2005)

Individuals with a learning goal orientation are concerned with increasing their competency and thus
seek out opportunities that foster learning, while individuals with a performance goal orientation are
concerned with gaining favorable judgments of their competence and have a tendency to avoid
challenging situations (e.g., Dweck, 1986; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Nicholls,
1984).

They defined adaptive behaviors as those that promote the establishment, maintenance, and
attainment of personally challenging and personally valued achievement goals. The adaptive
behavior patterns reflect challenge seeking, high and effective levels of persistence in the face of
obstacles, and enjoyment in exerting effort in the pursuit of task mastery. In contrast,
maladaptive behaviors were associated with a failure to establish reasonable, valued goals, or to
maintain effective striving toward those goals that are potentially within one’s reach. The
maladaptive behavior pattern is characterized by challenge avoidance, low persistence in the face
of difficulty, displaying negative affect (i.e. anxiety) and negative self-cognitions when
confronting obstacles (e.g., Ames & Archer, 1988).

Learning goal orientation is associated with adaptive behaviors that reflect a mastery-oriented approach to
tasks, while performance goal orientation is associated with maladaptive behaviors and a vulnerability to
a learned helplessness.

Specifically, learning goal was positively related to an incremental theory of ability, self-esteem, internal
locus of control, work and family orientation dimensions of mastery and work, and feedback-seeking
tendencies. In contrast, performance goal orientation was positively related to an entity theory of ability,
external locus of control, work and family dimensions of competitiveness, and fear of negative
evaluation.
The definition of goal orientation is drawn from Dweck and Leggett’s (1988) classification of two types
of goals that individuals pursue in task/learning contexts. According to Dweck and Leggett (1988),
learning goals characterize individuals who seek to increase their competence, to understand or master
something new, while performance goals characterize individuals who seek to gain favorable judgments
of their competence or avoid negative evaluations of their competence (p.1040). Thus, individuals with a
learning goal orientation focus on the “development” of competence, while individuals with a
performance goal orientation focus on the “judgment/evaluation” of their competence.

Button et al. (1996) defined learning goal orientation (LGOb) and performance goal orientation (PGOb)
as relatively stable individual difference variables.1 A learning goal orientation promotes “mastery-
oriented” responses, while a performance goal orientation creates a vulnerability to maladaptive or
helpless responses (p. 26). VandeWalle (1997) conceptualized goal orientation as a stable disposition
toward developing or demonstrating ability in achievement situations (p. 996). He defined learning goal
orientation (LGOv) as the desire to develop the self by acquiring new skills, mastering new situations, and
improving one’s competence. However, he argues for clarity in the performance goal orientation
construct to distinguish between “a desire to demonstrate competence” and “a desire to avoid negative
evaluations of competence.” Thus, he dichotomized performance goal orientation into performance prove
and a performance avoid dimensions. Performance prove goal orientation (PPGOv) is defined as “the
desire to prove one’s competence and to avoid negative judgments about it, while performance avoid goal
orientation (PAGOv) is defined as the desire to avoid the disproving of one’s competence and to avoid
negative judgments about it” (p. 1000).2 These definitions address the temporal nature of the construct by
explicitly conceptualizing goal orientation as a dispositional characteristic. As a general disposition, goal
orientation reflects global behavioral tendencies that are relatively stable over time and across situations.

According to Button et al. (1996), performance goal orientation items were written to reflect a
preference for nonchallenging activities, a desire to avoid mistakes, and a tendency to evaluate
performance by normative standards (i.e., the performance of others). In contrast, learning goal
items were written to reflect a desire to engage in challenging activities, an eagerness to improve
oneself, and a tendency to use one’s past performance as a standard to evaluate current
performance. The items were administered on a 7-point Likert scale, with responses ranging
from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree).

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.548.5451&rep=rep1&type=pdf (Arlise P.
McKinney, 2003)