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A New Look at Multiple Goal Pursuit: the Promise of a Person-Centered Approach

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Abstract

The current study reviewed and synthesized studies employing a person-centered approach to studying achievement goals. Towards this end, a common labeling scheme was developed for goal profiles. Ten profile types were identified across studies and compared via meta-analytic techniques in terms of academic motivation, social/emotional well-being, engagement, and achievement. Two theoretically relevant profiles—Mastery High and Approach High—were relatively common and adaptive across all outcomes; the Performance/Work Avoidance Low profile was also generally adaptive. The Average All Goals and Low All Goals profiles, conversely, were consistently maladaptive. The pursuit of performance-approach, performance-avoidance, or work-avoidance goals alone was rare and generally maladaptive except with respect to achievement. Supplementary moderator analyses revealed that school level and goal model—but not analytic technique—were important variables to consider regarding both the prevalence and adaptive nature of goal profiles. This research synthesis provides insight into longstanding debates within the achievement goal literature and highlights the potential of person-centered analyses to complement findings from more predominant variable-centered research.

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Notes

  1. The multiple goal perspective also argues that performance-approach goals may have independent, specialized, or selective effects, which do not necessarily require simultaneous goal endorsement (Barron and Harackiewicz 2001). However, our focus here is on simultaneous goal pursuit, which is represented as an interactive effect in Barron and Harackiewicz’s conceptualization of multiple goal pursuit.

  2. Other common sample moderators include the gender and ethnic composition of the sample. However, we did not include these variables in our analyses, as there was very little variability in the samples in our study for these variables, little prior evidence to suggest that goals differentially predict outcomes based on differences in the gender and ethnic composition of the sample in prior meta-analyses (e.g., Huang 2012; Hulleman et al. 2010), and we were concerned with testing too many moderators based on the approach we employed (see “Results”). Notably, testing gender and ethnic composition of the sample does not allow one to fully consider whether the variables function differently based on gender or ethnicity as the analysis is based on sample rather than individual characteristics.

  3. Standard errors are based on standard deviations and sample sizes; thus, the inclusion of potentially biased standard error estimates from these studies could potentially compromise the validity of our findings. We conducted a parallel set of primary analyses with these samples omitted and found analogous results. We report on findings including these samples in the interest of being as inclusive as possible.

  4. Correlates that did not fit into one of these four indicated categories were not included in analyses and are not listed in Supplementary Table 1. The majority of excluded correlates assessed some aspect of intelligence/aptitude (e.g., numerical reasoning, nonverbal intelligence, IQ, mathematics ability) or assessments of the instructor or classroom environment (e.g., teacher’s competence, quality of teaching methods, satisfaction with course, quality of pedagogical material).

  5. Note that, contrary to moderator analyses assessing profile prevalence (Table 3), k refers to the number of outcomes rather than the number of studies contributing to a given analysis.

  6. The trichotomous goal model included studies that used either the PALS (Midgley et al. 2000) or a scale by Vandewalle (1997). The 2 × 2 model was only measured using the AGQ (Elliot et al. 1999). The approach with work-avoidance goals model included studies that used one of several versions of Niemivirta’s (1996b, 1998) and Järvelä and Niemivirta’s (2001) scales or a scale developed by Meece et al. (1988). The trichotomous with work-avoidance model included studies employing either scales developed by Niemivirta (2002) or Skaalvik (1997).

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Harris Cooper, Erika Patall, Cary Roseth, Amy Dent, and Alison Koenka for their expertise and comments on earlier versions of this paper. The authors also thank Kristy Robinson for her assistance with the preparation of this paper.

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    Stephanie Virgine Wormington & Lisa Linnenbrink-Garcia

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Wormington, S.V., Linnenbrink-Garcia, L. A New Look at Multiple Goal Pursuit: the Promise of a Person-Centered Approach. Educ Psychol Rev 29, 407–445 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-016-9358-2

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