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Article Excerpt
Abstract. Although achievement goal theory is currently one of the dominant theoretical frameworks used to understand and improve student motivation (Brophy, 2004), little work has been done to evaluate the achievement goals of students with ADHD. After an initial review of achievement goal theory, the current study begins to address four research questions: What are the achievement goals of students with ADHD? How do achievement goals of students with ADHD differ from those of students without ADHD? How are achievement goals related to other academic outcome variables for students with ADHD? Can current instructional practices be altered to promote optimal goals and motivation of students with ADHD? Results revealed a number of interesting differences for students with ADHD, especially concerning performance-avoidance goals. Implications are discussed.
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Over the past two decades, achievement goal theory has emerged as one of the predominant motivational frameworks for understanding students' achievement motivation (Brophy, 2004; Midgley et al., 1998; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). Although achievement goal theory has been widely used to understand the motivation of students in a variety of educational settings, we know very little about the achievement goals of students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Students with ADHD have significantly higher dropout rates, increased frequency of failing grades, and poor academic outcomes compared to youth without ADHD (e.g., Fischer, Barkley, Fletcher, & Smallish, 1993). Furthermore, the school performance of individuals with ADHD is often significantly lower than would be predicted by their cognitive abilities (Hinshaw, 1992).
Achievement goal theory has been found to predict academic performance independent of cognitive ability (Elliot & Church, 1997; Harackiewicz, Barron, Tauer, & Elliot, 2002). Understanding the potential contribution of achievement goals in the typical path towards poor outcomes of children with ADHD could help us develop prevention and intervention programs to reduce the likelihood of poor outcomes for these youth.
Research is needed that can begin to address the following questions: What are the achievement goals of students with ADHD? How do the achievement goals of students with ADHD differ from those of students without ADHD? How are achievement goals related to other academic outcome variables for students with ADHD? Finally, can current instructional practices be altered to promote optimal goals and motivation of students with ADHD?
Theoretical Background
Achievement goal theory provides a framework for understanding the reasons why we engage in achievement-related behavior and the standards used to evaluate success (Ames, 1992; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Nicholls, 1984). Thus, rather than simply determining an overall amount or quantity of motivation, achievement goals help us determine the type or quality of someone's motivation.
Different labels have been used by different researchers; however, two general types of achievement goals have been proposed: mastery and performance (see Elliot, 2005, for a review). (1) When pursuing mastery goals, the purpose is to develop competence by acquiring new knowledge and skills. Success and failure are judged through self-referential standards or absolute standards of being able to complete a particular task. When pursuing performance goals, on the other hand, the purpose is to demonstrate competence relative to others (or to avoid demonstrating incompetence), and success and failure are judged through normative comparisons to others. According to Dweck (1986), the type of achievement goal adopted shapes how students approach, experience, and react to their school work, and has an influential impact on the affect, behaviors, and cognitions they experience.
For example, in one of the first comprehensive reviews of the achievement goal literature, Ames (1992) noted that students pursuing mastery goals used deeper, more elaborate study strategies, selected more challenging tasks, persisted in the face of difficulty, and held more positive attitudes toward learning. In contrast, students pursuing performance goals were more likely to adopt superficial learning strategies, select easier tasks, and engage in maladaptive behavior patterns following difficulty or failure. Therefore, several researchers quickly concluded that mastery goals were the optimal achievement goal for students to pursue.
The perspective that mastery goals are adaptive and performance goals are maladaptive has been labeled the mastery goal perspective (see Barron & Harackiewicz, 2001). One obvious implication of this perspective would be to question whether certain student populations who are struggling in school, like students with ADHD, are maximizing their endorsement of mastery goals while minimizing their endorsement of performance goals.
Other researchers disagree with a strict mastery goal perspective, suggesting that performance goals can also promote important achievement outcomes because they help orient individuals toward achievement and competence (Harackiewicz, Barron, Pintrich, Elliot, & Thrash, 2002). For example, Wentzel (1991) noted that high school students who adopted both mastery and performance goals had higher GPAs than students who only adopted mastery goals. In fact, several studies have found positive performance goal effects in some situations and for certain individuals (see Barron & Harackiewicz, 2000, for a review). Thus, a number of theorists endorse a multiple-goal perspective in which adopting both types of achievement goals may be more adaptive.
Furthermore, more recent work on achievement goal theory suggests that a mastery-performance goal distinction of motivation may be a simplistic dichotomization. For example, Elliot and colleagues (Elliot & Church, 1997; Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1996) partitioned the performance goal construct into performance-approach goals, where an individual's goal is to approach a learning opportunity in order to demonstrate competence (e.g., "My goal is to do better than other students") and performance-avoidance goals, where an individual's goal is to avoid demonstrating incompetence (e.g., "I just want to avoid doing poorly compared to others"). When these refined measurement scales have been used, maladaptive learning patterns have been found to be more closely associated with performance-avoidance goals and adaptive learning behaviors to be associated with performance-approach goals (Elliot, 2005). (2)
Thus, an alternative implication of the multiple goal perspective would be to question whether certain student populations, like students with ADHD, are endorsing the optimal combination of goals. Perhaps students with ADHD are adopting mastery goals but are not endorsing performance-approach goals. Ultimately, however, it is important to recognize that the optimal combination of goals for achieving academic success for students with ADHD may be different from those endorsed by successful children without such impairment.
Goal Orientations vs. Classroom Goal Structure
Another distinction that has emerged in the achievement goal literature centers on whether it is the goals of the student or the goals being promoted in a classroom environment that are being assessed. In other words, researchers have adopted person-centered approaches that measure the achievement goals that students personally endorse (typically referred to as goal orientation) and situation-centered approaches that measure the goals perceived to be created by a particular classroom and teacher (often referred to as perceived classroom goal structure or classroom goal climate).
One important implication of this distinction is that the perceived classroom goal structure is argued to shape and influence students' goal orientation. Ames (1992) described classroom structures in terms of how they make certain achievement goals prominent to students through the type of assignments, evaluation practices, and distribution of authority used in the classroom. For example, evaluation practices that normatively compare or track students by level of ability reinforce performance goals. In particular, several researchers have studied how perceived classroom goal structures change as students transition from one educational environment to another, such as the transition from elementary school to middle school (Midgley, 2002). These authors have noted structural changes in middle school that are linked to a decline in personally pursued mastery goal orientations with subsequent negative effects on academic and psychological well-being. For example, rather than remaining with one primary teacher who teaches all subjects to the same group of students, students in middle school are taught by different teachers who have particular expertise in a given subject. Furthermore, students are typically tracked and grouped by ability into higher versus lower sections of particular subjects, making normative comparisons among students more salient for both students and teachers. To counteract this shift in orientations, researchers have attempted interventions that continue to reinforce and promote mastery goal structures in middle school environments (Midgley & Edelin, 1998), as well as studying the impact of promoting mastery and performance-approach goals in a classroom (Linnenbrink, 2005).
Applying Achievement Goal Theory to Students with ADHD
Although researchers have begun to apply achievement goal theory to investigations involving other types of educational disabilities (e.g., see work by Sideridis, 2005a), little research exists on the achievement goal orientations of students with ADHD or their perceptions of classroom goal structures. This is unfortunate because children with ADHD are described as having performance deficits, not skill deficits (Hinshaw, 1992). In other words, they have the necessary skills to function at a higher level, but fail to use them. Specifically, compared to peers without ADHD, these children tend to quit working on academic tasks more often (Hoza, Pelham, Waschbusch, Kipp, & Owens, 2001; Milich & Greenwell, 1991, Milich & Okazaki, 1991) and exhibit greater frustration with tasks (Milich & Greenwell, 1991; Milich & Okazaki, 1991).
Many of the academic behaviors that students with ADHD display seem to be associated with the maladaptive behaviors found in early research on having a performance goal orientation. Thus, students with ADHD may be pursuing performance goals at a higher rate while pursing mastery goals at a lesser rate. However, it is not yet known whether promoting a mastery approach is most conducive to the academic success of youth with ADHD. In order to understand the influence of classroom environments on the achievement goals of youth with ADHD, it is important to determine how students with ADHD perceive their classroom environments. Once the optimal goal orientations for this population are identified, their perception of classroom environments will help guide the development of classrooms conducive to their learning needs.
Interesting, although there is little research using contemporary measures of achievement goals to study students with ADHD (formally comparing and contrasting levels of mastery, performance approach, and performance-avoidance goals), a series of studies have been conducted on children with ADHD utilizing several of the core concepts and research paradigms from which achievement goal theory derived. Specifically, some ADHD researchers have been influenced by the early work of Dweck (e.g., Diener & Dweck, 1978; Dweck, 1975) and her laboratory paradigm of using solvable and unsolvable academic tasks. This work has been used to study learned helplessness and attribution patterns in achievement situations to determine the conditions under which children respond with an adaptive, mastery response vs. a maladaptive, helpless response. For example, Milich (1994) reviewed a series of studies in which he and his collaborators employed a research paradigm similar to Dweck's to evaluate the response patterns of students with ADHD when faced with success and failure experiences.
In her early work, Dweck found that some children responded adaptively to unsolvable tasks by attributing failure to lack of effort, increasing persistence, and maintaining a positive outlook that they had been presented a challenge to overcome. In contrast, other children responded maladaptively to unsolvable tasks by attributing failure to lack of ability, withdrawing, developing a negative outlook, and avoiding subsequent tasks. Using similar techniques, Milich and his colleagues demonstrated that when faced with unsolvable problems, boys with ADHD displayed several of the characteristics that are associated with a maladaptive, helpless pattern (e.g., students with ADHD were less likely to persist and were more frustrated than students without ADHD) (Milich & Greenwell, 1991; Milich & Okazaki, 1991). However contrary to predictions, boys with ADHD who made effort attributions consistent with the adaptive, mastery response demonstrated less effort, greater helplessness, and more frequent quitting than boys with ADHD who attributed failure to external causes. Thus, the attributional response that yields adaptive behaviors among students without ADHD (that failure reflects lack of effort and thus can be controlled by giving more effort) did not provide the same benefit for boys with ADHD.
An additional component of this work evaluated the extent to which psychostimulant medication altered the achievement behavior of students with ADHD when faced with solvable and unsolvable problems. Results revealed that students were more likely to persist and experienced less frustration when on medication versus a placebo, especially when confronted with challenging and unsolvable problems (Carlson, Pelham, Milich, & Hoza, 1993; Milich, Carlson, Pelham, & Licht, 1991). In addition, students with ADHD on medication were more likely to make adaptive, mastery patterns of attributions than when taking...
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