Achievement goals and student well-being

This study is concerned with the role that achievement goals may play in facilitat-ing the psychological well-being of students. Specifically, we build on ‘‘goal the-ory’ ’ analysis of adaptive behavior in examining the relationship between task and ego goals, perceptions of school emphases on task and ego goals, and indices of well-being and disruptive behavior. Generally, task goals and perception of the school as emphasizing task goals were related to positive psychological well-being, and ego goals and perceiving the school as emphasizing ego goals were related to negative psychological well-being. This pattern was found for both African Ameri-can and Euro-American students. However, path analyses pointed to possible differ-ent processes as operating for the African Americans and the Euro-Americans in the sample. ª 1999 Academic Press Over the past decade or so, motivational research has focused extensively on the role that purpose plays in shaping attitude and the intensity and quality of behavior (cf. Ames, 1992; Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Urdan & Maehr, 1995 for recent reviews). Primary attention has been given to two goals, Task and Ego,1 and a large body of information has evolved that is related to the effects of these goals on learning and achievement in particular. When, for example, individuals engage in an activity with the purpose of developing skills, gaining competence, and promoting understanding—task goal—they are more likely to invest in the task. More importantly, when they invest The authors thank Paul Pintrich and Carol Midgley for their helpful comments. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Avi Kaplan, 1225, Department of Education