Achievement Motivation

• motivation: a psychological construct designed to explain why people vary in the amount of time, energy, and talent they invest in the tasks they confront
• we recognize motivation by observing behavior
  • choice of behavior / direction
  • willingness or eagerness to engage
  • effort and persistence (grit)
  • quality of cognitive engagement 
  • depth of processing
• Sample and Methodology
• Terms to Understand
  • attributions: how people explain the causes of their stress and failure
  • influence self-efficacy
  • people naturally look for understanding of why events occur
  • effort and ability are the most common attributions
  • causal dimensions:
    • locus of control
    • internal: attribute factors to qualities about you
    • external: attribute factors to something outside yourself
    • stability: how will these factors change over time?
    • personality is stable
    • luck is unstable
    • controllability: effort is controllable, personality isn’t
  • achievement goals: focus on competence
  • performance-approach: demonstrating high competence to self and others
    • focus on looking good
    • tend to have self-efficacy
    • prefer tasks easy for self, hard for others
    • avoid personally difficult tasks
    • expend effort when it indicates high ability
    • avoid effort when it indicates low ability
    • when efficacy is in doubt students may shift to performance-avoidance
  • performance-avoidance: avoiding demonstrating incompetence to self or others
    • with high efficacy
    • fear of failure
    • exert high effort to avoid failure
    • success brings relief but not satisfaction
    • with low efficacy
    • fear of failure
    • self-handicapping: failing on purpose to avoid feeling bad
    • avoid internal attributions for behavior
  • learning goals: improving or increasing competence
    • self-efficacy compared to others is not an issue
    • prefer personally moderate challenge
    • exert effort and persist
    • use deep processing and self-regulation

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