Ames and Archer 1988

Ames, Carole, and Jennifer Archer. 1988. "Achievement goals in the classroom: Students' learning strategies and motivation process." Journal of Educational Psychology.

Based on study of "how specific motivational processes are related to the salience of mastery and performance goals in actual classroom settings." Randomly selected 176 students at a junior high or high school for academically advanced students. Students responded to a questionnaire on their

• perceptions of classroom goal orientation
• use of effective learning strategies
• task choices
• attitudes, and
• causal attributions.

Students who perceived an emphasis on mastery goals in the classroom

• reported using more effective strategies
• preferred challenging tasks
• had a more positive attitude toward the class, and
• had a stronger belief that success follows from one's effort.

Students who perceived performance goals as salient

• tended to focus on their ability
• evaluated their ability negatively, and
• attributed failure to lack of ability.

The pattern and strength of the findings suggest the classroom goal orientation may facilitate the maintenance of adaptive motivation patterns when mastery goals are salient and are adopted by students.

• Bibliography module: Ames and Archer 1988
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): A
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 18 May 1999

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