Which best contrasts the difference between a mastery-approach goal and a performance-approach goal?

Broadly speaking, achievement goals have been defined as the reasons for which people strive for success in achievement settings (Ames and Archer, 1988, Dweck and Leggett, 1988, Nicholls, 1984). The most commonly agreed conceptualization of achievement goals distinguishes them depending on how people define and valence (i.e., appraise) competence (Elliot & McGregor, 2001). Based on that definition, three types of achievement goals seem especially relevant in the educational contexts; these are (a) mastery-approach goals when competence is defined with absolute or self-referenced criteria and is valenced positively; (b) performance-approach goals when competence is defined with normative criteria and is valenced positively; and (c) performance-avoidance goals when competence is defined with normative criteria and is valenced negatively. A student who strives to comprehend the subject material of the day or to improve her level of understanding is supposed to endorse mastery-approach goals, while a student who aims at outperforming her peers is supposed to pursue performance-approach goals. Accordingly, a student who aims at avoiding being worse than his or her classmates is said to adopt performance-avoidance goals.

Research has shown that mastery-approach goals are the most consistent and reliable predictors of a wide range of desired outcomes including, but not limited to, interest (Hulleman et al., 2010), enjoyment (Daniels et al., 2009), and challenge seeking (Lee & Kim, 2014). In contrast, performance-avoidance goals have been associated with undesired outcomes such as heightened anxiety (Daniels et al., 2009) and challenge avoidance (Jagacinski et al., 2008, Shim and Ryan, 2005). Performance-approach goals have shown a mixed pattern. Some studies for instance have found that they did not differ from mastery-approach goals in outcomes such as task involvement and enjoyment among achievement oriented people (Elliot & Harackiewicz, 1994). Other studies have also shown that although performance-approach goals are not associated with some positive outcomes such as intrinsic motivation (Murayama & Elliot, 2009) and challenge seeking (Lee & Kim, 2014), they predict academic performance (Barron and Harackiewicz, 2003, Wolters, 2004).

Regarding the main aim of our study, the relation of mastery-approach goals and performance-approach goals to school performance, recent literature has revealed that performance-approach goals that are defined as a pure aim to outperform others, rather than as an overarching reason to demonstrate high competence (Elliot, 2005; cf. Kaplan & Maehr, 2007), predict in a more reliable way academic performance, than mastery-approach goals (Bipp and van Dam, 2014, Durik et al., 2009, Elliot et al., 1999). These findings are consistent with the meta-analysis of Hulleman et al. (2010) but contradict a more recent meta-analysis which has shown that situationally induced mastery-approach goals, as compared to performance-approach ones, lead to somewhat better performance in verbal tasks (Van Yperen, Blaga, & Postmes, 2015).

Regarding school performance, there are also a few studies which have shown that school performance is predicted either by both mastery-approach and performance-approach goals (Chen, 2015, Church et al., 2001, Linnenbrink, 2005, Matos et al., 2017 - Sample 2; Niepel et al., 2014, Senko et al., 2013, Song et al., 2015) or by mastery-approach goals only (Keys et al., 2012, Lau and Nie, 2008, Matos et al., 2017 - Sample 1; Shim, Ryan, & Anderson, 2008). Yet, most of these studies showing mastery-approach goals being equivalent or superior to performance-approach goals relied on an earlier conceptualization of performance-approach goals according to which the aim of outperforming others is intertwined with ego concerns – for instance the higher-order aim to demonstrate superior ability (see also Kaplan & Maehr, 2007). Therefore, it remains unclear whether mastery-approach goals are more conducive than performance-approach goals when goals are devoid of a higher-order reason (e.g., to develop competence for mastery-approach goals; to demonstrate competence for performance-approach goals).

Indeed, research has shown that when performance-approach goals are operationally defined as pure aims (i.e., just to outperform others), they predict school performance in a more consistent way than mastery-approach goals do (Hulleman et al., 2010, Senko et al., 2011). Does this mean that students should favor performance-approach goals over mastery-approach goals if they are to achieve academically? Should they become more vigilant only on what is required to learn (Senko et al., 2013) thereby following the teachers' agenda (Hulleman & Senko, 2010)? Not at all, because mastery-approach goals may still lead to improved academic performance. But they may do so in an indirect way. In support of this view, a few studies with university students have shown that mastery-approach goals predict, next to performance-approach goals, higher grades through interest (Harackiewicz, Durik, Barron, Linnenbrink-Garcia, & Tauer, 2008) or enjoyment (Daniels et al., 2009).

Yet, as this brief overview of studies that operationally defined achievement goals as pure aims suggests, the indirect paths linking mastery-approach goals with academic performance have been shown in studies conducted in higher-education contexts and among university students. So, a question that awaits answering is whether a similar path exist in secondary educational systems, where interest, enjoyment, or challenge is less likely to manifest in courses, like mathematics, that are compulsory rather than elective. To the best of our knowledge, there has been only one study which investigated a similar process among high school students and which has also shown through path analysis mastery-approach goals to predict higher grades through interest (Dinger, Dickhauser, Spinath, & Steinmayr, 2013). Yet, in that research the effects of prior grades were not considered. We therefore intended to revisit this issue by controlling for prior grades, by assessing performance-approach goals as well as mastery-approach and performance-avoidance goals as pure aims, and by examining challenge seeking as a particular mechanism that mediates the relation between mastery-approach (but not performance-approach or performance-avoidance goals) and school performance.

As said, challenge seeking constitutes an adaptive motivational response pattern (Dweck & Leggett, 1988), namely because it is inherently tied with intrinsic motivation (Lepper, Corpus, & Iyengar, 2005). Indeed, students who enjoy challenges (or perceive academic tasks as such) are more likely to recruit their inner resources and invest more time and effort in their schoolwork (Putwain et al., 2016, Strati et al., 2017). Besides, as Grant and Dweck (2003) have shown, seeking challenging tasks and striving for learning are closely associated to each other and they together predict more energy expenditure and persistence in class work (see also Donnellan, 2008). Apparently, such an adaptive response pattern is presumed to facilitate performance in the long run (Dettmers, Trautwein, Lüdtke, Kunter, & Baumert, 2010) because, among others, challenge seeking seems to coincide with deep strategy use, preference for difficult tasks, and taking action in the face of impediments (Turner, Thorpe, & Meyer, 1998).

Further support to the view that challenge seeking may act as the link between mastery approach goals and school performance comes from the meta-analytic review conducted by Hulleman et al. (2010). These authors found that mastery-approach goals that in their operational definition embrace the notion of challenge seeking and (or) interest were more positively related to performance (r = 0.14) as compared to mastery-approach goals that focus on mastery and improvement (r = 0.05). This meta-analytic finding implies that challenge-seeking may perhaps drive part of the relation between mastery-approach goals and performance, something which becomes unnoticed once mastery-approach goals are defined, and assessed, as pure aims. That is, as goals simply aiming at mastering, learning, and understanding a task in hand (Elliot & Murayama, 2008). Even under such conceptualization however, mastery-approach goals may still relate to higher academic achievement because, as Senko et al. (2011) argue, mastery-approach goals may activate one's curiosity or challenge. Therefore, although it seems that challenge seeking may mediate, and explain, the relation between mastery-approach goals and academic performance, there is no empirical research testifying this proposition. The main aim of our study thus was to test this hypothesis. Furthermore, we investigated whether perceptions of classroom environment (namely, the degree to which classroom environment favors mastery strivings or competition) may also account for any variance in the endorsement of mastery-approach, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goals.

In the achievement goal research tradition, the learning environment of a classroom, termed goal structures (Ames, 1992), is considered to direct students toward endorsing certain achievement goals (Meece et al., 2006, Meece et al., 2006). Perceived classroom goal structures have been usually discerned as those that promote learning, mastery, and improvement (and thus termed mastery goal structures), those that favor competition and rivalry among students (and thus termed performance-approach goal structures), and those that highlight avoiding doing mistakes and showing incompetence in front of the others (and thus termed performance-avoidance goal structures).

There is ample evidence in the literature to claim that mastery goal structures are linked with more desired outcomes than performance goal structures (for a review, see Rolland, 2012). For instance, perceived mastery goal structures have been associated positively with intrinsic motivation (Murayama & Elliot, 2009), help-seeking (Schenke, Lam, Conley, & Karabenick, 2015), cognitive strategies (Wolters, 2004), and academic achievement (Lau and Nie, 2008, Roseth et al., 2008), either directly, or indirectly through the endorsement of mastery-approach goals (Kaplan and Maehr, 2007, Wolters, 2004). Conversely, performance-approach goal structures have been associated negatively with certain desired outcomes such as intrinsic motivation (Murayama & Elliot, 2009), achievement, and task engagement and positively with some unwanted outcomes such as effort withdrawal and avoidance coping (Lau & Nie, 2008). Yet, with respect to achievement, a quasi-experimental study showed that students performed better when they were found in classrooms in which more emphasis was put on performance-approach goals or on performance-approach goals along with mastery-approach goals (Linnenbrink, 2005).

To summarize, the link between perceived goal structures and academic correlates has been shown through three different, sometimes overlapping, approaches. The first considers perceived goal structures, along with achievement goals, as antecedents of the school-related outcomes. The second approach presumes that goal structures enhance the adoption of certain achievement goals which in turn predict academic outcomes, whereas the third one investigates whether goal structures (namely as a classroom characteristic) moderate the association between personally endorsed achievement goals and outcomes (for an overview, see Murayama & Elliot, 2009). In this study, we also examined whether perceived goal structures would relate to grades through the endorsement of the respective achievement goals and, in turn, through challenge-seeking. In doing so, we aimed to contribute as well to the discussion of whether perceived goal structures predict educational outcomes because they favor certain achievement goals (Meece et al., 2006), without ignoring however the reciprocal relation between perceived goal structure and achievement goals (as one's personal achievement goals may lead one to pay more attention to those environmental cues that confirm and validate the pursuit of these goals) (Nickerson, 1998). We avoided examining whether goal structures would moderate the association between achievement goals and grades as such a test would have required multilevel analyses. Yet, this analysis was not feasible because of the limited number of available classes (Hox, 2010).

In this study, our main aim was to investigate to what extent academic achievement would be explained through two different channels - a direct one that entails endorsing performance-approach goals (something which has been already shown in prior research, yet mainly with university students), and an indirect one that involves challenge seeking as a mediating mechanism linking mastery-approach goals to academic achievement. We focused on challenge seeking as a likely mediator of the relation between mastery-approach goals and higher grades for three reasons. First, because challenge seeking is by itself a desired educational outcome that reflects adaptive motivational processes (Dweck, 1986). Second because several studies have shown that challenge seeking predict higher grades (Lepper et al., 2005). Third, because in the earlier conceptualization of mastery-approach goals where challenge seeking was inherently tied with mastery-approach goals as an underlying reason (e.g., “It is very important to me to feel that my coursework offers me real challenges”), mastery-approach goals were found to predict academic performance (Grant & Dweck, 2003; see also Hulleman et al., 2010).

To this direction and in line with the call of Senko et al. (2011), we hypothesized that challenge seeking would act as a mediator between mastery-approach goals and end-year grades even after we controlled for mid-semester grades (Hypothesis 1). Further, in line with the revised achievement goal theory which (a) operationally defines performance-approach goals as aims for surpassing others which are not necessarily tied with ego concerns (Elliot, 2005), and which (b) has shown that such kind of goals predict better academic performance (Hulleman et al., 2010), we anticipated performance-approach goals to directly predict higher grades, even after controlling for baseline grades (Hypothesis 2). Regarding performance-avoidance goals, we expected, in line with prior studies which have highlighted their maladaptive nature (Jagacinski et al., 2008, Shim and Ryan, 2005), to relate negatively to challenge seeking and grades (Hypothesis 3).

Moreover, we explored whether perceived goals structures would predict higher grades and challenge seeking either directly or indirectly through achievement goals (Research Question 1). Irrespective of whether achievement goals would fully, partly, or do not mediate the relation between perceived goal structures and educational outcomes, we anticipated perceived mastery goal structures to relate positively to mastery-approach goals (Hypothesis 4a) and perceived performance goal structures to relate positively to both performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals (Hypothesis 4b). This is because literature has indicated that the achievement goals that a teacher is perceived to emphasize in his or her classroom are more easily adopted by the students (Meece et al., 2006).

To examine our hypotheses, we recruited a sample of Turkish high school students and focused on the math class. In doing so, we could examine the associations among perceived goal structures, personal achievement goals, and grades in a hypercompetitive context, given that the Turkish educational system is normatively selective. Many Turkish middle school students aspire to achieve high to be admitted to renowned high schools (through national exams) and the same is true for high school students who aspire to enter University because tertiary education, as compared to non-tertiary education, offers much more job opportunities in Turkey (OECD, 2012). The math course was chosen as it is one of the main subject matters that students are tested to enter University.

In this study we investigated, after controlling for mid-semester grades in mathematics (as well as students' gender, grade-level and their parents' education level and family income), whether end-year grades in that mathematics can be predicted through two distinct routes, the one entailing the promotion and endorsement of mastery-approach goals and the other involving the promotion and endorsement of performance-approach goals. Our findings indicate, in agreement with Senko et al. (2011),

From the achievement goal perspective, there seems to exist (at least) two different paths that may be associated with success: As our research suggests, though performance-approach goals seem to directly predict higher grades, mastery-approach goals can do so through challenge-seeking. Given that challenge seeking is a valuable outcome per se, and that perceived mastery goal structures, and in turn mastery goals endorsement, can also predict academic performance teachers will benefit students

We would like to thank the students for their participation as well and the principals the counselors and the teachers of the participating schools for their collaboration and support. We are also fully indebted to Aylin Koçak, Bariş Şahin, Özge Özgurt, and Bilgen Nur Yazici for their valuable contribution during data collection.

This work was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) [grant number 114K815].