Definition
Students engage in achievement strivings for a variety of reasons and with diverse purposes. Achievement goals refer to these reasons, goals, and purposes underlying individuals’ achievement-related behaviors. Achievement goals often function as a primary motivator driving students’ cognition, affect, and actions in specific learning situations. For young children, the goal of improving their competence is the most important such reason when they demonstrate achievement behaviors. Because young children have strong mastery motivation and are not attuned to social comparison information just yet, the goal of validating their competence is less meaningful than that of acquiring new knowledge and developing new skills. In comparison, achievement behaviors of older students are often guided by other types of goals as well, including the goals of...
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Bong, M. (2012). Age-Related Differences in Achievement Goal Differentiation. In: Seel, N.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_804
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