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Example research essay topic: Goal Setting Theory Motivational Theories - 1,871 words

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Theories of Motivation The Latin root of the word motivation means to move; hence, in this basic sense the study of motivation is the study of action. Modern theories of motivation focus more specifically on the relation of beliefs, values, and goals with action. It is possible review the work growing out of these theories of achievement motivation with a particular emphasis on developmental and educational psychology. Furthermore, although motivation theories have emerged from different intellectual traditions (Ajzen 1997, p. , 12), we focus on those that are most closely linked to expectancy-value models of behavior. Expectancies refer to beliefs about how one will do on different tasks or activities, and values have to do with incentives or reasons for doing the activity.

We use this perspective to organize our presentation, by grouping motivational theories into four broad categories. The first focuses on beliefs about competence and expectancy for success. The second focuses on the reasons why individuals engage in different activities; these theories include constructs such as achievement values, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, interests, and goals. The third integrates expectancy and value constructs. The fourth draws links between motivational and cognitive processes. To continue, it is very essential as well as truly important to analyze and discuss the goal Setting Theory along with Self-Worth Theory in order to from the distinct as well as clear realization of the subject introduced earlier.

In other words, one should pay very close attention to various motivational theories because they reveal and provide the detailed information about different aspects that play a unique role in the society. As it was stated earlier there are basically two major classification of the hypotheses mentioned above: Content and Process Motivational Theories. The first one describes and analyzes how behavior is energized, directed, sustained, and stopped by factors external to the person. Second one, on the contrary, focuses on factors within a person that initiate, direct, sustain, and stop behavior.

Although there are many content hypotheses that belong to the most prominent studies of social and psychological matter, it is essential and very necessary to concentrate on analyzing or examining the Process theories that were introduced earlier in the paper. Goal Setting Theory is allocated at the process motivational brunch of emotional science. Various researchers have paid a particularly close attention to this subject because it directly relates to the general realization of the encouragement to perform something as such. Different scholars have become very interested in children's achievement goals and their relation to achievement behavior. Several different approaches have emerged. For instance, Bandura (1997) and Schunk (1990) have shown that specific, proximal, and somewhat challenging goals promote both self-efficacy and improved performance.

Other researchers have defined and investigated broader goal orientations. For example, Nicholls and his colleagues (1990) defined two major kinds of motivation ally relevant goal patterns or orientations: ego-involved goals and task-involved goals. Individuals with ego-involved goals seek to maximize favorable evaluations of their competence and minimize negative evaluations of competence. Questions like Will I look smart? and Can I outperform others?

reflect ego-involved goals. In contrast, with task-involved goals, individuals focus on mastering tasks and increasing their competence. Questions such as How can I do this task? and What will I learn? reflect task-involved goals. Duval and the colleagues provided a complementary analysis distinguishing between performance goals (like ego-involved goals) and learning goals (like task-involved goals).

With ego-involved (or performance) goals, children try to outperform others, and are more likely to perform tasks they know they can do. Task-involved (or mastery-oriented) children choose challenging tasks and are more concerned with their own progress than with outperforming others. An important advance in this area is the distinction between performance-approach and performance-avoid goals. This distinction arose in part because of some inconsistent evidence about the effects of performance goals on various outcomes. As the name implies, performance-approach goals imply engagement in achievement tasks for performance reasons, whereas performance-avoid goals concern disengagement in order not to appear stupid.

Generally, performance-approach goals appear to have more positive consequences on motivation and achievement than do performance-avoid goals. However, there is some disagreement among goal theories about the positive consequences of performance-approach goals. This distinction is quite similar to the distinction originally made by Atkinson (1964) between the approach and avoidance components of need-achievement motivation. Other researchers have adopted a more complex perspective on goals and motivation, arguing that there are many different kinds of goals individuals can have in achievement settings. For example, Ford proposed a complex theory based on the assumption that humans are goal directed and self-organized. He defined goals as desired end states people try to attain through the cognitive, affective, and biochemical regulation of their behavior.

Furthermore, Ford viewed goals as only one part of motivation; in his model motivation is defined as the product of goals, emotions, and personal agency beliefs. Although Ford and Nichols (Ford 1992, Ford & Nichols 1987) outlined an extensive taxonomy of goals, they distinguished most broadly between within-person goals (desired within-person consequences) and person-environment goals, which are desired relationship between the person and their environment. Human values and attainment value, the within-person goals include affective goals such as happiness, physical well-being, cognitive goals (exploration, intellectual creativity), and subjective organization goals (unity, transcendence). The person-environment goals include self-assertive goals such as self-determination and individuality, integrative social relationship goals such as belonging and social responsibility, and task goals such as mastery, material gain, and safety. Although Ford & Nichols (1987) developed measures to assess all 24 goals specified in Ford's model, their evidence suggests that people typically rely on a much smaller cluster of core goals in regulating their behavior. Ford also developed an important set of principles for optimizing motivation, based on the tenets of his theory.

Both social and academic goals relate to adolescents school performance and behavior. For instance, goals related to school achievement include seeing oneself as successful, dependable, wanting to learn new things, and wanting to get things done. Higher-achieving students have higher levels of both social responsibility and achievement goals than lower-achieving students. Similarly, there is an association among middle school children's pro-social goals of helping others, academic pro-social goals such as sharing learning with classmates, peer social responsibility goals such as following through on promises made to peers, and academic social responsibility goals such as following the teacher's instructions. Pro-social goals related positively to peer acceptance. Interestingly, academic responsibility goals related negatively to peer acceptance but positively to acceptance by teachers.

Further, positive pro-social and academic goals related positively to pro-social behaviors (as rated by teachers) and negatively to irresponsible behaviors. Finally, the pursuit of positive social goals was facilitated by perceived support from teachers and peers. Before leaving the straight motivation theories, we want to add one more that is not easily classifiable in terms of expectancies and values. Another important theory that is very essential to forming an adequate realization of various social processes within a society is the Self-Worth theory.

This hypothesis also belongs to the process motivational brunch of psychological science. Covington (1998) defined the motive for self-worth as the tendency to establish and maintain a positive self-image, or sense of self-worth. Because children spend so much time in classrooms and are evaluated so frequently there, he argued that a key way to maintain a sense of self-worth is to protect one's sense of academic competence. That is, children need to believe they are academically competent in order to think they have worth as a person in the school context.

Therefore, children will try to maximize, or at least protect, their sense of academic competence in order to maintain their self-worth. One way to accomplish this is by making causal attributions that enhance one's sense of academic competence and control. Both college students and younger individuals most-preferred attributions for success are ability and effort; the most-preferred attribution for failure was not trying. Attributing failure to lack of ability was a particularly problematic attribution that students preferred to avoid. However, school evaluation, competition, and social comparison make it difficult for many children to maintain the belief that they are competent academically. Covington (1992) discussed the strategies many children develop to avoid appearing to lack ability.

These include procrastination, making excuses, avoiding challenging tasks, and perhaps most important, not trying. The author referred to effort as a double-edged sword, because although trying is important for success (and is encouraged by both teachers and parents), if children try and fail, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that they lack ability. Therefore, if failure seems likely, some children will not try, precisely because trying and failing threatens their ability self-concepts. Such strategies are called failure avoiding strategies. Furthermore, Covington discussed how even high-achieving students can be failure avoid ant. Rather than responding to a challenging task with greater effort, these students may try to avoid the task in order to maintain both their own sense of competence, and others' conclusions regarding their competence.

What is more, reducing the frequency and salience of competitive, social comparative, and evaluative practices, and focusing instead on effort, mastery, and improvement, would allow more children to maintain their self-worth without having to resort to these failure-avoiding strategies. Recent school reform efforts support these suggestions. Some work in the self-concept area, however, raises questions about Covington's contention that academic competence beliefs are the strongest determinant of self-worth. For example, Duval (1990) has shown that self-concepts regarding physical appearance and social competence more strongly predict self-worth than academic self-concepts. Perhaps academic self-competence is not as strong a predictor of self-worth as Covington claims for all individuals. In fact, several investigations suggest that the power of any particular self-concept to influence one's self-worth is dependent on the value one attaches to this competence domain and that people may reduce the value they attach to those tasks at which they expect to fail in order to maintain their sense of self-worth.

As one can see, there is a direct correspondence or relation between those two theories. On the one hand, they both refer to motivational aspects as they appear in children and adults. What is more, the approach of possible relevance to the basic realization of process discussed in this paper is of great importance because it reveals some of the major characteristics of motivation as the vital factor of humans existence. On the other side, the theories differ in their method of evaluating the contributing aspects of the development process.

Although both hypotheses are very important and essential to forming a discrete and thorough realization of the subject, the Goal Setting one provides a fuller as well more realistic explanation of the most essential motivational factors. Bibliography: Atkinson, (1964), The Motivational and Cognitive Theories-Direct Relevance to the Real Life; Colorado Push, Colorado. Ajzen I. , (1980), Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior; Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Bandura A, and Schunk D.

H. (1997), Cultivating Competence, Self-Efficacy, and Intrinsic Interest through Proximal Self Motivation; Random House, New York-Reprinted Edition. Covington, (1992), Self-Worth Theory: General Information and Introduction to Psychology; Oxford University Press, Oxford. Duval S, and Wicklund, R. A. , A theory of Objective Self-Awareness; Academic Pres, New York. Ford and Nicholls (1987), Understanding the Goal Setting Motivational Approach; Irwin McGraw-Hill, Illinois.


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Research essay sample on Goal Setting Theory Motivational Theories

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