during self-directed practice, students were asked to set either a learning goal
(how to solve problems) or a performance goal (merely completing the prob-
lems). In a first experiment, half of the students in each goal condition evalu-
ated their problem-solving capabilities after each session. The learning goal
with or without self-evaluation and the performance goal with self-evalua-
tion led to higher self-efficacy, math skill, and motivation (i.e., problem com-
pletion during the practice sessions) than did the performance goal without
self-evaluation. The frequency of the self-evaluation experiences appear to
have led to a ceiling effect and masked the effects of goal setting. This was
corrected in the second experiment, in which the students in each goal condi-
tion evaluated their progress in skill acquisition only once. As found in prior
research, the learning goal led to higher motivation and achievement out-
comes than did the performance goal. These results suggested that self-
evaluation and goal setting were reciprocally dependent.
Schunk and Ertmer (1999) extended this research on goal setting to learn-
ing of computer skills by college students. These researchers found that when
self-evaluation experiences were limited, process goals led to higher percep-
tions of self-efficacy, self-evaluations of learning progress, strategy use, and
achievement. However, frequent opportunities for self-evaluation produced
comparable outcomes regardless of process or outcome goals. These findings
point to the need for an encompassing theory of self-regulation that can ex-
plain the interdependence of goal setting with other self-regulatory processes,
such as self-monitoring and self-evaluation. Such a model is presented later in
this chapter.
Process and Outcome Goals in Development
of Self-Regulatory Skill
Paralleling the distinction between self-efficacy and outcome expectations,
social cognitive researchers have also made a means–ends distinction be-
tween process and outcome goals in the acquisition of self-regulatory compe-
tence. This issue is discussed as part of a social cognitive model (Schunk &
Zimmerman, 1997; Zimmerman, 2000) that envisions self-regulation of a
particular skill as initially having social origins, but as ultimately involving
students’ development of personal control processes to adaptively manage
social and physical environmental outcomes on their own.
There are four markers on a social cognitive path to self-regulatory skill.
At the first marker or observational level, a novice must learn to discriminate
the correct form of the skill from a model’s performance and verbal descrip-
tions, such as when a novice journalist discerns a difference between a sea-
soned editor’s description of a routine news event and cub reporter’s (see Ta-
ble 12.1 first row). An observational level of skill is seldom induced from a
334 ZIMMERMAN AND SCHUNK