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Achievement orientation refers to one’s disposition regarding the cultivation and/or demonstration of ability. Most studies identify four distinct achievement profiles: learning oriented, work-avoidance oriented, performance and learning oriented, and performance and work-avoidance oriented.

A learning-oriented individual is primarily concerned with improving his or her ability, and is generally inclined to apply great effort to do so. In contrast, a work-avoidant learner values that achievement that can be obtained with minimal effort, and does not consider achievement gained through hard work to be indicative of a person’s intellectual worth. A performance- and learning-oriented person is more concerned with being positively evaluated than an individual who is learning-oriented. A performance-avoidance-oriented individual is concerned with cultivating an appearance of effortless achievement.

A student’s achievement orientation directly influences performance in the classroom. Learning-oriented students tend to appreciate most strongly the correlation between effort and success, and thus apply the greatest effort. There is evidence that as early as the first grade, students who attribute success to effort have higher literacy achievement scores.

Performance-oriented students are more likely to employ superficial learning strategies and to seek help less frequently, and therefore such an orientation can hinder success. These students are also the most likely to engage in procrastination.

An individual’s achievement orientation has a significant impact on his or her cultivation of new skills, and thus has important implications for educators. Classroom environments that foster comparison between students lead those students to develop performance-oriented attitudes toward education.

A Chinese study on the effects of classroom competition found that learning in a competitive environment leads to increased performance on easy tasks, but also leads students to become more performance oriented and more likely to sacrifice learning opportunities to be positively evaluated. A non-competitive environment allows students to value learning rather than immediate performance success.

Gender
Gender differences in achievement orientation are unclear. For example, research by Dweck has shown gender differences with females being more extrinsic or performance oriented. On the other hand, Meece and Holt found that girls were more likely to have learning as a primary goal, whereas boys in this example were more likely to have extrinsic or performance goals.

Joanna Giota conducted an experiment about gender differences. Giota conducted a study overseeing adolescent’s goal orientations varying between genders. Although her results ended up being unclear, they did come to some conclusions.

Giota looked at children in grades six and eight. In this study it is assumed that gender influences the development of different rationales for action. In turn these are assumed to affect the ways pupils engage in different learning situations in school. These are then assumed to result in gender-related differences in learning and achievement goals. Boys and girls are said to strive for different kinds of goals in schools, therefore demonstrating different types of motivation and goal orientation.

The experiment looked at eight different goal orientations: self-now, self-future, others-now, preventive-future, self-now + self- future, others now+ preventive-future, integrative, and negative/critical. The goal of the experiment was to see whether or not girls and boys differ in these subcategories. The results were as follows: in grade six the gender-influenced pupils’ achievement outcomes in mathematics directly. In grade eight, boys indicated higher motivation and ambition to obtain higher grades in mathematics and the natural sciences. The number of girls holding an integrative and a self now + self-future and an others-now + preventive future goal orientation was higher than the number of boys. Boys on the other hand hold a higher self-now and other-now goal orientation than girls.

The results mean there is variation across genders. Boys have higher immediate achievement orientation (self-now). Girls look further into the future more, and are also more aware of others, which affects their achievement orientation (others-now + preventive future). Overall, like Giota originally said, the results are unclear.

Socioeconomic Status
Another influence on achievement orientation is socioeconomic status. Newel Gill, Thomas Herdtner, and Linda Lough did an experiment including perceptual and socioeconomic variables used to predict academic and orientation outcomes. To do this half of the nursery was given special exercises to enhance bodily awareness: a rod-and-frame test, the Frosting test, and the Metropolitan Achievement test. The results were apparent; lower class children were less effective. This deficit of perceptual development of culturally deprived children at the beginning of grades kindergarten through three severely impairs them and should become a major component of head start programs. Middle class children acquire these skills of development and general intelligence at home whereas deprived children depend heavily on school. All of these things effect the students’ academic orientation in that those students with more general intelligence would be more comfortable in their learning environment, thus having hirer academic goals.

Relationship Effects
Relationships also influence achievement orientation. It is believed that by early elementary school, children know their educational strengths, influencing their achievement orientation at such an early age.

Wigfield and Cambria’s paper considers the expectancy value theory, which posits that the value of a subject or activity depends on the importance it has to the individual. Therefore, an individual who values math over English classes will be more achievement oriented to her math classes. Furthermore, the importance of the activity is dependent on various sociocultural influences. Therefore, the values of children’s socializers- particularly parents- influence their children’s achievement orientation.

For example, parental education level is an important indicator of their child’s achievement orientation. This is because parental education level generally indicates the socioeconomic status of the family, the family structure, and parental involvement in their children’s lives. Giordano found that adverse socioeconomic status, untraditional family structures, and minimal parental involvement lead to lower achievement orientation in children.

Giordano’s study was longitudinal researching the effects of parental, peer, and romantic relationships on the achievement orientation of its adolescent subjects. The study found that parental and peer relationships influenced achievement orientation more than romantic relationships did; however, there is also more research devoted to parental and peer relationship effects on achievement orientation.

Peers influence achievement orientation because children tend to spend the most time with others who are similar to them. Because of this, peer groups tend to have similar academic goals and achievement. Those with friends having high academic aspirations tend to have fewer problems academically. The study concluded that the drive and desire to be similar to peers is the reason for higher achievement orientation. According to the study, there does not seem to be a gender difference in relation to peer relationships and achievement orientation.

In contrast, there is a great gender difference in relation to romantic relationships and achievement orientation. The achievement orientation of girls is more likely to be adversely affected by romantic relationships than that of boys, who are basically unaffected by romantic relationships. Furthermore, boyfriends tend to demoralize their girlfriend’s academic achievements and goals; therefore, girls academic aspirations influenced by their achievement orientation dwindle and is adversely affected by romantic relationships.

Cross-Cultural Differences
Cross-cultural research on achievement orientation children has revealed several interesting findings. These findings highlight particular cultural differences in modes of learning and beliefs of children that affect achievement orientation and performance. However, there are several limitations to these findings.

Stevenson, Lee, and Stigler found that United States kindergarten children lagged behind Japanese children in mathematics and that by the fifth grade, both Japanese and Chinese students surpassed US students. Reading skills had similar significant differences with Chinese students having the highest scores for reading, the US second, and the Japanese the lowest. There were also no significant differences in cognitive abilities.

Stevenson and colleagues correlated several explanations for such findings. They noticed that US schools did not spend as enough time on math and science as Japanese or Chinese schools. Also US mothers tended to be more optimistic and happy with their children’s academic performance, possibly contributing to complacency in children and less sense of need for academic improvement. They concluded that Japanese mothers emphasized effort and hard work for success, while US mothers emphasized ability. When emphasizing effort, children are motivated to work harder for better results, especially after failure. When emphasizing ability, children are not as motivated after failure because they believe they have done the best they can do. Stevenson and Stigler expanded on this previous study and theorized that Americans emphasize ability model of learning and Japanese emphasize effort model of learning.

However, there are several limitations to Stevenson and colleague’s findings. Most importantly, the data is correlational and no causal connection can be made between ability vs. effort and academic achievement. Also, the concept of effort may change in different cultural contexts. For example, the Japanese or Asian cultural concept of effort is socially oriented; it is perceived more as a social obligation to the group. In Japanese culture, exerting more effort is positive because it leads you to your goal and there is more intrinsic motivation to do well. However, American culture views exerting more effort to avoid negative consequences; there is extrinsic motivation in exerting more effort.

These cultural differences in conceptions of effort may explain why Americans emphasize ability in learning and achievement orientation and why Japanese emphasize effort. However, these differences do not infer a causal connection between the attribution of ability or effort to success and academic achievement. While cultural differences in achievement orientation can be observed, further research should be conducted to look at the mechanism behind these cultural differences and other possible explanations for such differences. There are many cultures that are being observed and researched today, but with diversity increasing around the world, there are still many more to be compared.