The Motivational Effects of Goal Orientation, Self-Efficacy, and
Perceived Choice
Charles N. Elliott, Paul A. Story
Department of Psychology
Contact: [email protected]
Hypotheses
The present research explores goal
orientation and informational feedback on
intrinsic motivation, choice, autonomy, and selfefficacy:
 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 goalsetting 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 SelfDetermination Theory.
.
 Participants should report a similar amount of
words, experience equal challenge, and similar
enjoyment on the task.
30
MEANS FOR INTRINSIC
ACCOMPLISHMENT
Findings
 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 =
48.53) 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 =
11.15), 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.
MEANS FOR TASK CHOICE
35
30
25
25
20
20
15
15
10
10
5
5
0
0
Performance
Performance
Mastery
MEANS FOR INTEREST
Mastery
MEANS FOR IMPORTANCE
7
7
6
6
Method
Thirty-six Kennesaw State University
Students were randomly assigned to an approachmastery 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.
5
Conclusion
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
0
0
Performance
Performance
Mastery
Mastery
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.
Participants self-report personality differently
because of lessened social evaluative concerns. Selfefficacy 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 selfmonitoring, 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.