Achievement Goals

Abstract

Achievement goals are self-regulatory commitments that provide direction to individuals as they interpret and respond to competence-relevant situations. Four types of achievement goals have been the primary focus of the literature: Mastery-approach goals (master a task; improve over time), performance-approach goals (outperform others), mastery-avoidance goals (not fall short of mastering a task; not decline over time), and performance-avoidance goals (not be outperformed by others).