1. Charles N. Elliott, Paul A. Story
The Motivational Effects of Goal Orientation, Self-Efficacy, and Perceived Choice
Charles N. Elliott, Paul A. Story
Department of Psychology
Hypotheses
Findings
Contact:
The present research explores goal orientation and informational feedback on intrinsic motivation, choice, autonomy, and self- efficacy:
The orientation of approach-mastery increases motivation for completing tasks, and increases self-efficacious behavior during tasks.
Mastery goals lead to increases in achievement motivation and perceived choice
Using informational feedback with goal- setting behavior increases intrinsic motivation in both present and future challenging tasks.
Competence-increasing feedback and task relatedness increases levels of intrinsic motivation in accordance to Self- Determination Theory.
Participants should report a similar amount of words, experience equal challenge, and similar enjoyment on the task.
Both conditions showed similar levels of challenge for completing the 55 item word find: having similar task interest, enjoyment, incentive, and time to complete it.
Participants in the performance condition measured similarly in self-efficacy ( M = 46.73) compared to those in the mastery condition ( M = ) after completing the task.
Participants in the mastery condition found a similar amount of words ( M = 11.26) as participants in the performance condition ( M = ), demonstrating equal challenge.
Participants in the mastery condition showed higher levels of task choice and higher in intrinsic accomplishment than those in the performance condition.
Participants in the mastery condition found the study more interesting and important than those in the performance condition. .
Method
Conclusion
Thirty-six Kennesaw State University Students were randomly assigned to an approach-mastery or an approach-performance condition. Participants either saw a set of instructions that showed means from a bogus study or indicated their own goal for words found. Participants were given ten minutes to complete a college-related word find puzzle while being active in search for at least five minutes. After, participants randomly received slightly or quite positive informational feedback, and wrote in their words for comparison.
The General Self-Efficacy Scale (Schwarzer & Fuchs, 1996), Academic Motivation Scale (Vallerand et al., 1992.), and Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Ryan, 1982) measured task choice, self-efficacy, and intrinsic accomplishment for both conditions. Additionally, a demographic measuring importance and interest for the study was given after.
Participants self-report personality differently because of lessened social evaluative concerns. Self- efficacy is increased by goal completion, but not goal orientations themselves. Goal orientations show support for many of the explored hypothesis and further findings which support investigation in the experimental setting. Because of interest and self- monitoring, self-efficacy can provide us with answers to why these changes may be occurring so strongly during mastery goal pursuits.
Now, the manipulation of a public versus private academic setting is needed to help further causation. Goal orientations will be examined in terms to performance (socially compared to others), and mastery for the individual (without any performance comparisons). These settings will include in-person responses from the participants, where they can be observed easier, and where the challenging task can be manipulated further.
Table 1. Goal Orientation Data for Accomplishment, Choice, Interest, and Importance.
Mean of Goal Orientation
Mastery
Performance
F (1, 30)
ηp2 p
Intrinsic Accomplishment
22.00
16.06
6.895
0.187
.013
Task Choice
27.10
21.13
4.862
0.139
.035
Interest
5.20
3.26
11.404
0.273
.002
Importance
5.36
3.79
6.545
0.179
.016
All p-values significant at the .05 level.