Effects of different achievement goals on performance and emotion after failure to succeed

Abstract

Three groups of undergraduates were asked to solve two mathematical problems, using an experimental procedure of a typical learned helplessness paradigm. Before tasks, the students in the mastery-goal group () and in the performance-goal group () were instructed about their achievement goals. For the mastery-goal group, they were told that as they made efforts to solve the problem, they would increase their ability in math; for the performance-goal group, they were told that although this test would not increase their math ability, they try to get a better score than anyone else. The first preliminary task was not solvable for the mastery-goal and performance-goal groups but solvable for the control group (), while the second test task was solvable for all groups. Before and after the first task, the students were asked to complete assessments about negative and positive emotions. An ANOVA indicated that the performance-goal group performed the second task significantly worse than the control group. But there were no significant effects between the mastery-goal and performance-goal groups. The results indicate that this study was not well-designed for examining the effect of achievement goals.