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A passable working definition is the development of motives, capabilities,
interests, and behaviors that have to do with performance in evaluative situations. How does that
pertain to the average child or adolescent in a realistic format? Achievement is an important
concept for all of us relative to issues such as:
. Grades during our school years
. Scores on college entrance exams
. Ability to pass a football or hit a softball
. Engaging in appropriate social behavior (to be popular)
These are all examples of achievements, but where or how does achievement become relevant to us?
First, it is important for all of us in terms of the need for achievement (n Ach), the degree to which
the individual strives for success. The Need for Achievement is based on expectancy theory.
McClelland explained achievement motivation as the need to perform the difficult as well and as
quickly as possible. In 1983, Spence and Helmreich identified three factors as contributing to
achievement tendencies: work, mastery, and competition. Spence and Helmreich found that females
scored higher on work and males scored higher on both mastery and competition. Have your class
try to determine why. One reason is that they were well socialized into traditional gender roles.
Do males and females have any tendency to adhere to specific patterns of motivation? Research by
Dweck (1986) found the girls’ pattern of motivation differed from that of boys and that very bright
females showed greater debilitation after failure; that is, they displayed greater decrements in
motivation and performance than did other females or any males. Conversely, the brightest males
showed facilitation following failure. Dweck posits that lower math achievement for females may
be at least partially attributable to this difference in motivational patterns because sex/gender
differences in both math and motivation are greatest among the brightest students. Dweck also
found that females show a lower preference for novel or challenging tasks than do males and that
females are more likely to attribute their failure to lack of ability than are males.
In addition to the determinants of achievement behavior already mentioned, let us look at the
cognitive determinants of this construct. Two factors that strongly impact what an individual is
likely to achieve are the:
. Value placed on achievement of the goal. An individual’s willingness to set high standards
and work to attain them will fluctuate in accordance with how valuable the achievement is
> to them personally. Obviously, value then becomes a significant predictor of achievement
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CHAPTER 12: MOTIVATION
behavior.
· Expectation of achieving the goal. When dealing with children and adolescents, those who
expect to succeed usually do and those who do not expect to succeed usually do not.
Attributional Theories of Achievement
Rotter’s (1954) locus-of-control model was expanded by Virginia Crandall (1967) as follows.
Individuals with an internal locus of control (internalizers) assume that they are personally
responsible for their success or failures. Individuals with external locus of control (externalizers)
believe their success-to-failure rates depend on luck or fate, rather than on their own effort or ability.
Crandall feels that an internal locus of control is conducive to achievement. Individuals must
believe that their efforts will lead to positive outcomes if they are to work for success and become
high achievers. Work by Findley and Cooper supported Crandall’s hypothesis, in finding that
internalizers do earn higher grades and typically outperform externalizers on standard tests of
academic performance.
Once we have taken a test or made a decision, to what do we attribute our success or failure?