The past two decades have witnessed remarkable growth in achievement goal theory and research, establishing the construct as one of the central determinants of motivation and performance. While the efforts by many researchers to achieve greater conceptual clarity and methodological precision have yielded many fruitful results, several unresolved issues remain. One such issue has to do with different performance-approach goals and their effects. In this talk, I will first introduce how Korean middle school students talk about their achievement goals, or the reasons that they are striving to achieve at school. Evidence will be presented that adolescent learners pursue not only academic goals but also social goals. Given the ongoing debate regarding the types and effects of performance goal, I will then introduce findings from recent experiments that demonstrate contrasting effects of ability and normative performance goals on anxiety, interest, and performance in difficult problem-solving tasks. I will conclude my talk with educational implications of the achievement goal theory and research findings.
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