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of performances” (Bandura, 1986, p. 391). Although there are many motivational
constructs, self-efficacy is central to promoting students' engagement and learning.
These context-specific and domain-specific beliefs affect behavior by influencing
the choices that people make and the courses of action they follow (Linnenbrink &
Pintrich, 2004).
One reason that self-efficacy is important is that it has been associated with
a variety of other motivational and learning-related variables. For example, Ross,
Shannon, Salisbury-Glennon, and Guarino (2002) point out that a large number of
studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between mastery goal orientation
and self-efficacy. There is also evidence that when students feel confident they can
learn, they tend to use more self-regulatory strategies (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990;
Zimmerman, 2000b).
Although much of the work on self-efficacy has been carried out with young
students, one important study with college-age students was reported by Chemers,
Hu, and Garcia (2001). The study involved the entire freshman class at a major uni-
versity in California. Academic self-efficacy was measured along with high-school
GPA and first year college GPA. While high-school grades were significantly related
to college grades, self-efficacy at the time of college entrance was related to grades
at the end of the first year of college, even when prior GPA was controlled. Other
recent studies (Pietsch, Walker, & Chapman, 2003; Pintrich, 2003) as well as a
recent review of self-efficacy studies (Valentine, DuBois, & Cooper, 2004) have
confirmed these patterns. Consistent with this body of research, it was expected that
self-efficacy would be related to learning strategies and achievement.
Goal orientation
. Students' perceptions about achievement behaviors and the
meanings they assign to such behaviors is the root of goal orientation theory. The
classroom environment influences the goals students adopt. Mastery and perfor-
mance goals are two major constructs of goal orientation. Students with a mastery
goal orientation have the desire to learn for understanding, knowledge or insight,
whereas students with a performance goal orientation want to be perceived as com-
petent in comparison to their peers and may seek to outperform their classmates
(Ames, 1992; Dweck, 1986; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Elliot, 1999). Goal theo-
rists have made an important distinction between those achievement goals that are
performance-approach in which students want to look good in comparison to their
peers and those that are performance-avoidance in which students want to not look
bad in comparison to their peers. In general, the research suggests that mastery
and performance-approach goals tend to be positively related to academic achieve-
ment, and performance-avoidance goals sometimes related negatively to academic
achievement (Harackiewicz, Barron, Pintrich, Elliot, & Thrash, 2002).
One consistent finding in the achievement goal literature is that students who
support mastery goals are more likely to use deep-level strategies such as elabo-
ration and organization than students who support performance goals (Fredricks,
Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Ross et al., 2002; Wolters, Yu, & Pintrich, 1996). A great
deal of research, as Patrick, Kaplan, and Ryan (2007) point out, has documented
that mastery goals are connected with students' use of cognitive and self-regulatory
strategies and interacting with others about their ideas and understanding. Multiple
