A correlational study examined relationships between motivational orientation, self-regulated learning, and classroom academic performance for 173 seventh graders from eight science and seven English classes. A self-report measure of student self-efficacy, intrinsic value, test anxiety, self-regulation, and use of learning strategies was administered, and performance data were obtained from work on classroom assignments. Self-efficacy and intrinsic value were positively related to cognitive engagement and performance. Regression analyses revealed that, depending on the outcome measure, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and test anxiety emerged as the best predictors of performance. Intrinsic value did not have a direct influence on performance but was strongly related to self-regulation and cognitive strategy use, regardless of prior achievement level. The implications of individual differences in motivational orientation for cognitive engagement and self-regulation in the classroom are discussed. Self-regulation of cognition and behavior is an important aspect of student learning and academic performance in the classroom context (Corno & Mandinach, 1983; Corno & Rohrkemper, 1985). There are a variety of definitions of selfregulated learning, but three components seem especially important for classroom performance. First, self-regulated learning includes students' metacognitive strategies for planning, monitoring, and modifying their cognition (e.g., Brown, Bransford, Campione, & Ferrara, 1983; Corno, 1986; Zim

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Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance.

Motivational processes influence a child's acquisition, transfer, and use of knowledge and skills, yet educationally relevant conceptions of motivation have been elusive. Using recent research within the social-cognitive framework, Dweck describes adaptive and maladaptive motivational patterns and presents a research-based model of motivational processes. This model shows how the particular goals children pursue on cognitive tasks shape their reactions to success and failure and influence the quality of their cognitive performance. Dweck argues that this approach has important implications for practice and the design of interventions to change maladaptive motivational processes. She presents a compelling proposal for explaining motivational influences on gender differences in mathematics achievement and observes that empirically based interventions may prevent current achievement discrepancies.--The Editors Most research on effective learning and performance of cognitive tasks analyzes the particular cognitive skills required to succeed at those tasks. In contrast, the focus here is on motivational processes that affect success on cognitive tasks. That is, the focus is on psychological factors, other than ability, that determine how effectively the individual acquires and uses skills. It has long been known that factors other than ability influence whether children seek or avoid challenges, whether they persist or withdraw in the face of difficulty, and whether they use and develop their skills effectively. However, the components and bases of adaptive motivational patterns have been poorly understood. As a resuit, commonsense analyses have been limited and have not provided a basis for effective practices. Indeed, many \"commonsense\" beliefs have been called into question or seriously qualified by recent research--for example, the belief that large amounts of praise and success will establish, maintain, or reinstate adaptive patterns, or that \"brighter\" children have more adaptive patterns and thus are more likely to choose personally challenging tasks or to persist in the face of difficulty. In the past 10 to 15 years a dramatic change has taken place in the study of motivation. This change has resulted in a coherent, replicable, and educationally relevant body of findings--and in a clearer understanding of motivational phenomena. During this time, the emphasis has shifted to a social-cognitive approachwaway from external contingencies, on the one hand, and global, internal states on the other. It has shifted to an emphasis on cognitive mediators, that is, to how children construe the situation, interpret events in the situation, and process information about the situation. Although external contingencies and internal affective states are by no means ignored, they are seen as part of a process whose workings are best penetrated by focusing on organizing cognitive variables. Specifically, the social-cognitive approach has allowed us to (a) characterize adaptive and maladaptive patterns, (b) explain them in terms of specific underlying processes, and thus (c) begin to provide a rigorous conceptual and empirical basis for intervention and practice. Adaptive and Maladaptive Motivational Patterns The study of motivation deals with the causes of goaloriented activity (Atkinson, 1964; Beck, 1983; Dollard & Miller, 1950; Hull, 1943; Veroff, 1969). Achievement motivation involves a particular class of goals--those involving competence--and these goals appear to fall into two classes: (a) learning goals, in which individuals seek to increase their competence, to understand or master something new, and (b) performance goals, in which individuals seek to gain favorable judgments of their competence or avoid negative judgments of their competence (Dweck & Elliott, 1983; NichoUs, 1984; Nicholls & Dweck, 1979). l Adaptive motivational patterns are those that promote the establishment, maintenance, and attainment of personally challenging and personally valued achievement goals. Maladaptive patterns, then, are associated with a failure to establish reasonable, valued goals, to maintain effective striving toward those goals, or, ultimately, to attain valued goals that are potentially within one's reach. Research has clearly documented adaptive and maladaptive patterns of achievement behavior. The adaptive (\"mastery-oriented\") pattern is characterized by challenge seeking and high, effective persistence in the face of obstacles. Children displaying this pattern appear to enjoy exerting effort in the pursuit of task mastery. In contrast, the maladaptive (\"helpless\") pattern is characterized by challenge avoidance and low persistence in the face of difficulty. Children displaying this pattern tend to evidence negative affect (such as anxiety) and negative self-cogniCorrespondence concerning this article should be addressed to Carol S. Dweck, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, 603 E. Daniel, Champaign, IL 61820. l The word performance will be used in several ways, not only in connection with performance goals. It will also be used to refer to the child's task activity (performance of a task) and to the product of that activity (level of performance). The meaning should be clear from the context. 1040 October 1986 9 American Psychologist Copyrisht 1986 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0003-066X/86/$00.75 Vol. 41, No. 10, 1040-1048 Table 1 Achievement Goals and Achievement Behavior Confidence in Theory of intelligence Goal orientation present ability Behavior pattern Entity theory (Intelligence is fixed) Incremental theory (Intelligence is malleable) > Performance goal (Goal is to gain positive judgments/avoid negative judgments of competence) > Learning goal (Goal is to increase competence) If high ---> Mastery-oriented Seek challenge but High persistence If low ~ Helpless Avoid challenge Low persistence If high > Mastery-oriented ioOr ~ ' Seek challenge (that fosters learning) High persistence tions when they confront obstacles (e.g., Ames, 1984; C. Diener & Dweck, 1978, 1980; Dweck & Reppucci, 1973; Nicholls, 1975). Although children displaying the different patterns do not differ in intellectual ability, these patterns can have profound effects on cognitive performance. In experiments conducted in both laboratory and classroom settings, it has been shown that children with the maladaptive pattern are seriously hampered in the acquisition and display of cognitive skills when they meet obstacles. Children with the adaptive pattern, by contrast, seem undaunted or even seem to have their performance facilitated by the increased challenge. If not ability, then what are the bases of these patterns? Most recently, research has suggested that children's goals in achievement situations differentially foster the two patterns. That is, achievement situations afford a choice of goals, and the one the child preferentially adopts predicts the achievement pattern that child will display. Table 1 summarizes the conceptualization that is emerging from the research. BasieaUy, children's theories of intelligence appear to orient them toward different goals: Children who believe intelligence is a fixed trait tend to orient toward gaining favorable judgments of that trait (performance goals), whereas children who believe intelligence is a malleable quality tend to orient toward developing that quality (learning goals). The goals then appear to set up the different behavior patterns. 2 Learning and Performance Goals Contrasted How and why do the different goals foster the different patterns? How do they shape task choice and task pursuit to facilitate or impede cognitive performance? The research reviewed below indicates that with performance goals, the entire task choice and pursuit process is built around children's concerns about their ability level. In contrast, with learning goals the choice and pursuit processes involve a focus on progress and mastery through 2 See M. Bandura and Dweck (1985), Dweck and Elliott (1983), and Leggett (1985) for a more extensive treatment of children's theories of intelligence. The present article will focus on achievement goals and their allied behavior patterns. effort. Further, this research shows how a focus on ability judgments can result in a tendency to avoid and withdraw from challenge, whereas a focus on progress through effort creates a tendency to seek and be energized by challenge. Although relatively few studies as yet have explicitly induced and compared (or measured and compared) learning versus performance goals (see M. Bandura & Dweck, 1985; Elliott & Dweck, 1985; FarreU & Dweck, 1985; Leggett, 1985, 1986), many have manipulated the salience and value of performance goals, and hence the relative value of the two types of goals. This has been done, for example, by instituting a competitive versus individual reward structure (e.g., Ames, 1984; Ames, Ames, & Felker, 1977), by varying the alleged diagnosticity of the task vis vis important abilities (e.g., Nicholls, 1975), by introducing an audience or evaluator versus allowing the individual to perform privately or focusing his or her attention on the task (e.g., Brockner & Hulton, 1978; Carver & Scheier, 1981; E. Diener & SruU, 1979), and by presenting the task with \"test\" instructions versus \"game\" or neutral instructions (e.g., Entin & Raynor, 1973; Lekarczyk & Hill, 1969; McCoy, 1965; Sarason, 1972). Taken together, the results suggest that highlighting performance goals relative to learning goals can have the following effects on achievement behavior. Goals and Task Choice Appropriately challenging tasks are often the ones that are best for utilizing and increasing one's abilities. Recent research has shown that performance goals work against the pursuit of challenge by requiring that children's perceptions of their ability be high (and remain high) before the children will desire a challenging task (M. Bandura & D

Motivational processes affecting learning.

Achievement behavior is denned as behavior directed at developing or demonstrating high rather than low ability. It is shown that ability can be conceived in two ways. First, ability can be judged high or low with reference to the individual's own past performance or knowledge. In this context, gains in mastery indicate competence. Second, ability can be judged as capacity relative to that of others. In this context, a gain in mastery alone does not indicate high ability. To demonstrate high capacity, one must achieve more with equal effort or use less effort than do others for an equal performance. The conditions under which these different conceptions of ability function as individuals' goals and the nature of subjective experience in each case are specified. Different predictions of task choice and performance are derived and tested for each case. In this article, predictions of task choice, performance, and subjective experience in experimental achievement settings are derived, and relevant evidence is examined. An intentional view of behavior (Dennett, 1978) is adopted. In this, action is construed as a rational attempt to attain goals or incentives. In commonsense terms, individuals' actions serve to achieve purposes efficiently or economically. In the terms of games theory, action maximizes

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Achievement motivation: Conceptions of ability, subjective experience, task choice, and performance.

Despite the clear importance of social and environmental' influences on creative performance, a social psychology of creativity is yet to be developed. Theory and research have focused almost exclusively on a personality approach to creativity and, to a lesser extent, a cognitive-abilities approach. Following a consideration of the definition and assessment of creativity, a componential framework for conceptualizing creativity is presented here. Including domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, and task motivation as a set of necessary and sufficient components of creativity, the framework describes the way in which cognitive abilities, personality characteristics, and social factors might contribute to different stages of the creative process. The discussion emphasizes the previously neglected social factors and highlights the contributions that a social psychology of creativity can make to a comprehensive view of creative performance. A striking feature of many phenomenological accounts of creativity is the degree to which outstandingly creative individuals feel influenced by social and environmental factors. In many cases, these factors are quite ordinary, mundane events; it appears that even seemingly insignificant features of the environment can be detrimental or conducive to creativity in some individuals. For example, in a letter to a friend, Tchaikovsky (1906) described the devastating effect that

http://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0022-3514.45.2.357

The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization.

This article describes the control-value theory of achievement emotions and its implications for educational research and practice. The theory provides an integrative framework for analyzing the antecedents and effects of emotions experienced in achievement and academic settings. It is based on the premise that appraisals of control and values are central to the arousal of achievement emotions, including activity-related emotions such as enjoyment, frustration, and boredom experienced at learning, as well as outcome emotions such as joy, hope, pride, anxiety, hopelessness, shame, and anger relating to success or failure. Corollaries of the theory pertain to the multiplicity and domain specificity of achievement emotions; to their more distal individual and social antecedents, their effects on engagement and achievement, and the reciprocal linkages between emotions, antecedents and effects; to the regulation and development of these emotions; and to their relative universality across genders and cultures. Implications addressed concern the conceptual integration of emotion, motivation, and cognition, and the need to advance mixed-method paradigms. In closing, implications for educational practice are discussed.

John G. Nicholls

Papers

Causal attributions and other achievement-related cognitions: Effects of task outcome, attainment value, and sex.

Creativity in the person who will never produce anything original and useful: the concept of creativity as a normally distributed trait.

When a scale measures more than its name denotes: The case of the Test Anxiety Scale for Children.