Educational Psychology / Unit 7 EDP 0638 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Approach and Avoidance Goals
The idea
Crossing mastery and performance goals with approach and avoidance produces the two-by-two achievement goal framework. Mastery-approach goals seek to master the task. Mastery-avoidance goals seek to avoid misunderstanding or losing skill. Performance-approach goals seek to outperform others. Performance-avoidance goals seek to avoid looking worse than others. Outcomes differ: mastery-approach goals bring effort, interest and deep strategies; performance-avoidance goals bring poor persistence, anxiety, shallow strategies and low achievement; performance-approach goals are mixed, with higher grades but test anxiety and shallower learning.
In practice
Worked example: before a history test, one student wants to understand the causes of the war, a mastery-approach goal; another wants to beat a rival, a performance-approach goal; a third only hopes not to look stupid, a performance-avoidance goal.
Where people slip
Mastery-avoidance remains the least accepted of the four constructs. To classify a goal, ask two questions: is the standard the task or other people, and is the student moving toward success or away from failure?
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