BACKGROUND The achievement goal theory defines two major foci of students' learning goals (1) primarily interested in truly mastering a task (mastery orientation), and (2) striving to show ones competences to others (performance orientation). The present study is undertaken to better understand if and how health profession students' goal orientations change during the undergraduate program and ...

Achievement goal theory has emerged as a major new direction in motivational research. A distinction is made among conceptually different achievement goal orientations including the goal to develop ability (task goal orientation), the goal to demonstrate ability (ability-approach goal orientation), and the goal to avoid the demonstration of lack of ability (ability-avoid goal orientation). Scal...

The present study investigated how Taiwanese children’s perceptions of classroom goal structure and personal goal orientations were related to each other and to their engagement in handicapping and test anxiety. Three hundred and twenty-six sixth-graders completed a self-report survey assessing their achievement goal orientations, perceptions of the classroom goal structure, use of self-handica...