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Article Excerpt
The present study explores the relationship between students' perception of their institution's mission identity, personal goal orientation tendencies, and the extent to which they engage in mission-driven activities. Goal orientation research categorizes student motivations in three ways: mastery orientation (MO), performance-approach (PAp) orientation, and performance-avoidance (PAv) orientation. Mastery students focus on learning course content, while performance students are concerned with results. PAp students seek favorable results, and PAv students are concerned with avoiding negative results. Participants (n = 1,686) from a private midwestern, Roman Catholic university completed a multi-measure, self-report survey through on-line format. Results indicated that three goal orientation types were stronger in highly engaged students, with goal mastery orientation most significantly increasing with levels of engagement, compared to two types of performance orientations. Alternative settings in which goal orientation may influence behavior are discussed.
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Student motivation has been an interest of educational psychologists for decades (see Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck, 1984; Elliot & Church, 1997; Nicholls, 1984). Research in the late 1980s and early 1990s identified different types of goals that students often pursue within educational settings (Dweck, 1986). One prominent goal-focused model developed by Ames and Archer (1988) is called Goal Orientation Theory (GOT). In this model, goal orientation divides into mastery oriented goals (MOG), focused on mastery of material, and performance oriented goals (POG), directed towards reaching favorable results in varied situations. Furthermore, performance goals may be subdivided into performance-avoidance (PAv) goals, motivated by thoughts of avoiding failure or negative results (Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hole, 1988), or performance-approach (PAp) goals, the pursuit or approaching of goals for desired positive outcomes (Elliot, 1999). Mastery oriented (MO) students are concerned with learning course material, driven by intellectual curiosity, and most interested with mastering their coursework. Behaviors commonly attributed to MO students include a drive towards novel and challenging tasks, attribution of success to effort, high levels of task enjoyment, high degree of meta-cognition, resilience to failure, and exploration of alternate learning strategies. Mastery goal orientation is often linked to long-term learning, skill development, and greater persistence in the face of challenge.(Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck & Leggett, 1988), while performance oriented students engage in self-aggrandizing attributions, task aversion, utilization of minimal strategies, unwillingness to ask for assistance, self-handicapping behaviors, and attribution of failure to personal abilities (Meece et al., 1988).
Performance oriented (PO) students want most to outperform their peers, and they are concerned with tangible results like grades (Dweck & Legget, 1988). PO students, in contrast to MO students, are more prone to adopt maladaptive behaviors following an unfavorable result (Ames, 1992; Ames & Archer, 1988; Graham & Golan, 1991). PO students experience decreased classroom performance following a poor test outcome (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Hoyert & O'Dell, 2006). Performance-avoidance goals are associated with high anxiety, low performance, unwillingness to seek help, self-handicapping behaviors, and low efficacy (Urdan, Ryan, Anderman, & Gheen, 2002).
Interest in the application of goal orientation models and strategies extends beyond merely academic settings. For instance, mastery style learning approaches (but not performance orientation strategies) applied to the workplace are positively associated with upward mobility and in-house promotions (Lin & Chang, 2005). In fact, goal orientation models have been used to improve industrial training programs, because these strategies recognize that participant level of motivation affects skill acquisition (see Smith, 2005). Goal orientation strategies also appear as an operating agent in extracurricular activities, including sports and music (Ryska, Zenong, & Boyd, 1999; Smith, 2005).
The present study explores the role of goal orientation styles or strategies with undergraduates engaged in campus extracurricular activities (non-sports) that reflect the mission, vision, and values of their university. Goal orientation styles may impact a person depending on how much he or she is engaged in a given setting, and that engagement may have long-term implications for student development with respect to embracing the institution's higher educational mission. Because MO individuals tend to adopt and ingrain skills for many years (Roebken, 2007), it is possible that these persons may demonstrate more favorable perceptions of their institution's mission through increased levels of engagement. Higher education officials need to consider campus environments that may play a large role in fostering goal orientations that help students adapt to various settings. Therefore, it...
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