Goal Orientation, Goal Difficulty, and Incentive Values of Academic Goals

We examined relationships among goal attributes (difficulty and affective value) and goal types (mastery, performance, intrinsic, and extrinsic). Goal attributes of positive affect value and relative salience of positive value were higher for intrinsic goals, mastery goals, and more difficult goals, qualified by an interaction between difficulty and type of goal. Intrinsic goals were more affectively positive than extrinsic goals and mastery goals were more positive than performance goals, but these differences vanished if goals were also perceived as difficult. Results were consistent with goal-orientation theories and suggest the usefulness of integrating incentive-attribute concepts with goal-orientation theories.