task is indicative of inherent competence. It was discovered that managers who
were given a learning goal displayed greater self-efficacy and managerial effec-
tiveness than managers given performance goal. What was remarkable about
this study was that the two groups of managers were identical in actual talent
and in the feedback they received; what differed were the types of goals or abil-
ity conception they held. Students who focused on the process of learning out-
performed students who focused on performance outcomes.
Goal orientation theories have historically viewed students’ goal orienta-
tion as a stable personality trait, which is measured in a transsituational fash-
ion, rather than as a cognitive process, which is measured in a context-
specific way. The addition of the word orientation to goals was meant to
convey the dispositional quality of this construct. Goal orientation measures
do not focus on attaining a particular goal within a particular time frame but
rather on a general valuing of learning competence (i.e., the means) or per-
formance outcomes (i.e., the ends). Locke and Latham (2002) asked whether
cognitive measures of goal orientations are better predictors of academic out-
comes than personality measures. Recently, Seijts and Latham (2001) found
that individuals with a high performance goal orientation achieved as well as
students with a high learning goal orientation when the former were given a
specific learning goals to attain. It appears that assigned learning goals can
neutralize students’ initial goal orientation. There is also evidence that adop-
tion of task-specific learning goals can change students’ goal orientations.
Schunk (1996) studied changes in the students’ goal orientation as function of
specific goal learning experiences in mathematics. Schunk found that stu-
dents given task (i.e., learning) goal instructions displayed higher posttest
learning goal orientations than students given performance goal instructions.
Conversely, students given performance goal instructions displayed higher
posttest ego (i.e., performance) goal orientations than students given learning
goal instructions. This evidence of change in students’ goal orientation con-
flicts with dispositional assumptions and has led social cognitive theorists to
emphasize instead students’ cognitive goals and the processes used to evalu-
ate progress.
A recent review of the goal orientation literature with college students
(Harackiewicz, Barron, Pintrich, Elliot, & Thrash, 2002) uncovered wide-
spread evidence of three major goal orientation factors—a performance goal
orientation for attaining positive outcomes (i.e., approach), a performance
goal orientation for avoiding negative outcomes (i.e., avoidance), and a
learning goal orientation (i.e., mastery). Interestingly, a mastery goal orienta-
tion consistently predicted task interest but not academic performance out-
comes (e.g., college grades) whereas an approach performance goal orienta-
tion consistently predicted academic performance outcomes but not task
interest. Performance avoidance goals were linked to maladaptive outcomes.
These findings conflict with the traditional theoretical assumption that all
332 ZIMMERMAN AND SCHUNK