Goal orientation, also called achievement orientation, is an individual disposition toward developing or validating one's own ability in achievement settings. An individual can generally be described as mastery oriented, sometimes called learning oriented, when the goal is to develop one's ability, or performance oriented when the goal is to demonstrate it. Developed within a social-cognitive framework, goal orientation theory holds that a student's motivation and achievement-related behavior can be understood by considering the reasons or purposes adopted while doing academic work, focusing on how students think about themselves, their tasks and their own performance, and goal orientations have been shown to relate to academic achievement, adjustment and well-being.
Facts
Core ClaimGoal orientation, or achievement orientation, is an individual disposition towards developing or validating one's ability in achievement settings, either mastery oriented or performance oriented. 2 Classification
Education Level FAQs
Where did goal orientation research come from?
It grew from McClelland's 1940s work on achievement motivation through Eison and Nicholls to Carol Dweck's mastery and performance orientations.
Research on achievement motivation goes back to the 1940s and the work of David McClelland and colleagues, who linked achievement with motivation. In the 1970s the educational psychologist Eison proposed that college students who came to gain skills and knowledge had a mastery orientation, which he called a learning orientation, while those who came only for high grades had a grade orientation. Nicholls separately described task involvement and ego involvement, and that work set the stage for Carol Dweck, who proposed two types of goal orientation, mastery orientation and performance orientation. Later work by Elliot and VandeWalle moved to three factors, such as mastery achievement, performance-approach and performance-avoid in Elliot's model.
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Source Goal orientation (Wikipedia)
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Source Goal orientation (Wikipedia)
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1. Goal Orientation (Wikipedia)
an individual disposition towards developing or validating one's ability in achievement settingsView the Source 2. Goal orientation (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead paragraph, first sentence
Goal orientation, or achievement orientation, is an "individual disposition towards developing or validating one's ability in achievement settings".
In Approach: Cognitivism, Lead paragraph
Developed within a social-cognitive framework, the orientation goal theory proposes that students' motivation and achievement-related behaviors can be understood by considering the reasons or purposes they adopt while engaged in academic work.
In Group: Motivation and Goal Theories, Lead
Goal orientation, or achievement orientation, is an "individual disposition towards developing or validating one's ability in achievement settings".
Developed By: Carol Dweck, sections of the article
Dweck proposed that there are two types of goal orientation: mastery orientation and performance orientation.
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