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Goal Orientation theory is a well-documented construct of motivation and its usefulness has been established by a number of studies. According to previous research, individuals who are high in either mastery or performance orientations exhibit particular characteristics based on their beliefs about the purposes of learning and about themselves in relation to the learning process. Correlational studies consistently link these beliefs to typical academic behaviors including different levels of engagement, commitment and persistence. Those who are mastery oriented are inclined to engage more deeply and persist in difficult tasks than those who had a performance orientation. Recent studies have indicted that some learners can hold both sets of goal orientations, choosing to emphasize one or the other depending on how they perceive a learning situation resulting in four possible goal configurations. To date, there have been few studies that attempt to understand how these orientations influence the thinking and perceptions of learners as they approach challenging academic tasks. Although correlational studies have consistently revealed relationships of attitudes and perceptions to goal orientations, there is little first hand information about how these different learners describe their approaches to academic challenge and what is important to them in the learning process.
This qualitative study, based on interviews with twenty university students, describes their academic experiences and enriches the composite pictures of learners who fit in the four goal configurations formed by the two axes of mastery and performance orientations. Use of a combination of phenomenology and grounded theory methodology created dynamic pictures of the experiences of these learners and revealed consistent patterns that supported goal orientations as lens through which to view contrasting perceptions of academic challenge and responses to it.
Goal orientations were shown to organize qualitatively different academic realities for college students. Six themes emerged to describe these contrasting realities, including (1) the multi-dimensional nature of goals, (2) the importance of situation and context, (3) the links between beliefs and behaviors, (4) the role of teachers, (5) the interplay of interest and affect, and (6) the importance of families in determining goal orientation. Some of these themes confirmed existing data and others diverged from existing research and raised questions for further study.
