UNDERSTANDING THE MASTERY-AVOIDANCE GOALS CONSTRUCT: AN INVESTIGATION AMONG MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS IN TWO DOMAINS

Abstract

This dissertation addressed knowledge gaps concerning “mastery-avoidance goals”—a construct within the prominent motivational perspective Achievement Goal Theory. Mastery-avoidance goals refer to students’ engagement in an achievement task with the purpose of avoiding failure to develop competence. While it was introduced to the achievement goal literature over a decade and a half ago, the construct of mastery-avoidance goals still lacks intuitive relevance, conceptual clarity, and evidence of prevalence among young students. In addition, so far, research has not established clear patterns of relations of mastery-avoidance goals with the other personal achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance), with contextual motivational emphases, or with adaptive and maladaptive educational outcomes. This dissertation aimed to contribute to knowledge in these gaps by investigating mastery-avoidance goals among middle school students in two subject domains that concern different types of competence: science and instrumental music. The dissertation describes two studies. In Study 1, I administered a self-report measure to middle school students (N=126) that included summated scales to investigate the empirical distinction between mastery-avoidance goals and other achievement goals, the components of its conceptual definition, its prevalence of adoption by young students in the two different domains, as well as its relations with contextual emphases and adaptive and maladaptive educational outcomes. Multidimensional scaling analysis indicated that while students in both science and instrumental music made a distinction between mastery and performance goals, these students did not make a complete distinction between mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals, at least according to the conceptual definition investigated in these studies. Regression analyses indicated that students’ perceptions of their teachers’ emphasis on mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals were significantly related to their reports of mastery-avoidance goals. Cluster analysis suggested a pattern of two general motivational profiles in the sample of more and less motivated students that differed on their simultaneous and respective high and low endorsements of both mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, sense of academic efficacy, and also academic achievement. In Study 2, I aimed to further knowledge of the meaning that students make of mastery-avoidance goals by examining students’ (N=79) qualitative responses to questions asking them to interpret items from the summated-scales self-report measure. Findings from a qualitative content analysis supported the findings from Study 1 about students’ lack of distinction between mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goals, and indicated that students interpreted mastery-avoidance goals items in ways that were different from those intended by the researchers. These findings suggested that students form meanings of mastery-avoidance goals that are potentially different from the formal conceptual definition in the literature. The findings are interpreted as suggesting that students’ meaning-making about mastery-avoidance goals in both science and instrumental music may be contextualized by their personal characteristics (e.g., age), by characteristics of their school and classroom environments, and by situational characteristics (e.g., proximity of evaluative tasks). Further research should investigate systematically the different personal and contextual factors that may contribute to the meaning students make of mastery-avoidance goals.