Chapter 10 page 202
To bring the learning-goals/performance-goals perspective into the equation, you only need to
remember that the learners’ goals can be either learning goals or performance goals. Learners who
have the goal of getting the highest grade in the class on a math test (a performance goal) and who believe
that they has the ability to achieve this goal will be highly motivated to achieve it. However, they will only
use those techniques that will improve performance on the test; they will not learn anything extra. They will
not learn in a way that goes beyond the tests and applies knowledge to real life
Figure 10.1 summarizes some of the main processes in the student who becomes an avoider of
learning. This is often called avoidance motivation.
Figure 10.1: Avoidance motivation
I will illustrate with the example of a male middle-school student, Jeremy, who has avoidance
motivation for reading.
Jeremy has often experienced failure at reading. He believes that he is a poor reader. He also believes that
reading ability is pretty much innate and unchangeable: “Some people can read, and some can’t, and I just
don’t have the ability to do it. That’s not one of the talents I was born with.”
Given these beliefs and the experience of failure, it is not surprising that Jeremy has a low
expectation that he will succeed at any reading task. Therefore, he avoids reading whenever he can, because
he finds it unpleasant to engage at an activity that he is so poor at. Since he doesn’t believe he could ever
get substantially better, he might as well not bother.
However, Jeremy doesn’t stop there. He attempts to save face in his own mind in two ways. First,
he devalues reading. “Reading is for nerds. I won’t ever need much reading when I get a job someday. I
know people who have good jobs who hardly ever read.” In school, he says that English class is stupid, that
they never read anything worth reading. Second, Jeremy makes a big deal about his lack of effort. He
purposefully never turns in homework, and he brags about how little effort he puts into English. Sometimes
he asserts to his friends that he could get a good grade if he wanted to, but “it’s such a stupid class, it’s not
worth spending any time on it.”
Note that the real cause of the devaluing of the goal of reading is not that Jeremy
originally believed that reading is not valuable. He came to believe that reading is not valuable
because of his lack of success. Because Jeremy thinks that success is impossible, he convinces
Learner has
experiences of
failure at X.Learner believes
he/she lacks the
ability to
succeed at X.Learner believes
that ability at X
is innate and
unchangeable.Learner
has a low
expecta-
tion of
success at
X.To save face, the learner
may say:
A. “The goal has no
value.”
B. “I have ability, but I
don’t ever make effort,
so that’s why I fail.”Learner
avoids
engaging
in X as
much as
possible.