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Abstract
Two experiments investigated the effect of achievement goals on the transfer of a problem-
solving strategy in 7- and 11-year-old children. In the first experiment, motivational priming
took place before the learning of the strategy, affecting the learning as well as the transfer
of the strategy. In the second experiment, motivational priming took place after the learning
of the strategy and before the transfer task, affecting only the process of transfer. ParticipantsÕ
self-reported achievement goals suggested that, in both experiments, participants high on per-
formance-approach goals were less likely to transfer the strategy than participants low in per-
formance-approach goals. This was found regardless of participantsÕ age, perceived ability,
and the high level of mastery goals that all participants endorsed.
Ó 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +972 8 6472897.
E-mail address: yoella@bgumail.bgu.ac.il (Y. Bereby-Meyer).
0361-476X/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cedpsych.2004.06.003
2 Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22
of knowledge and skills from the situation in which these were learned to new situ-
ations (Bassok, 1990; Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1983; Price & Driscoll, 1997; Reeves &
Weisberg, 1994; Schoenfeld, 1988). Most theory and research on the transfer of
problem-solving skills focused on the conditions which enhance the cognitive pro-
cesses that are assumed to be involved in transfer of knowledge (Price & Driscoll,
1997). Very little research examined the influence of ‘‘warmer’’ processes such as
motivation on the transfer of learned skills (cf. Pintrich, Marx, & Boyle, 1993).
The current study examines the effects of different motivational orientations on
childrenÕs learning and transfer of problem-solving strategies.
Transfer of knowledge refers to the ability to transfer what one has learned to no-
vel tasks that embody similar underlying characteristics. A significant body of re-
search examined the conditions that contribute to transfer. Many studies
conducted on analogous problems (a ‘‘base problem’’ and a ‘‘target problem’’ that
are similar in structure but different on surface characteristics) indicated that individ-
uals are unlikely to spontaneously transfer the rule that was learned in one situation
to new situations (Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1983; Price & Driscoll, 1997; Reeves &
Weisberg, 1994). This failure to transfer knowledge was found even when the task
was given in a familiar context—a condition that was assumed to facilitate abstrac-
tion of the strategy (Price & Driscoll, 1997).
Yet, research indicates that transfer is enhanced when learners are actively in-
volved in the learning process. Learning and transfer improved, for example, when
learners were asked to compare two or more base analogues (Kourilsky & Witt-
rock, 1987; Catrambone & Holyoak, 1989; Chen Idson et al., 2004). when they
actively generated solutions to a base problem rather than simply heard the solu-
tion without ever attempting to solve it (Needham & Begg, 1991), and when they
were asked to explain in detail the exemplar problem (Ahn, Brewer, & Mooney,
1992). Moreover, research indicates that conditions that facilitate the use of cog-
nitive strategies, such as organization, integration, finding meaningful connections
in the information, and tying the information to prior knowledge, were related to
comprehension and transfer (Mayer, 1987). These conditions are assumed to oper-
ate on two main cognitive processes that are involved in transfer, either at the time
of learning the strategy, or at the time of application in a new task: (1) abstraction
of the strategy at the time of learning that makes it more available for transfer to
new situations; (2) an effortful mental search that identifies a strategy not previ-
ously abstracted and leads to its application in the new task (cf. Salomon & Per-
kins, 1989).
Whereas active learning and use of cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies were
found to contribute to problem-solving transfer, no instruction method is a guaran-
teed prescription for creating these conditions (Mayer & Wittrock, 1996). However,
recent developments in the motivational literature (Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele,
1998; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002) suggest that studentsÕ motivation may be an impor-
tant aspect of transfer.
Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22 3
Gheen, & Midgley, 2002a), and were sometimes found to be unrelated to use of
meta-cognitive strategies (Pintrich, 2000b).
Dweck and her colleagues (Dweck, 1986; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) suggest that
performance goals will mainly have negative effects among individuals with low per-
ceived ability and not among those with high perceived ability, whereas mastery
goals would have positive effects regardless of individualsÕ perceived ability. How-
ever, Dweck and her colleagues do not distinguish between performance-approach
and avoidance goals. Moreover, some empirical findings challenge this prediction
(e.g., Kaplan & Midgley, 1997; Miller et al., 1993).
Whereas most research in achievement goal theory treated mastery and perfor-
mance goals separately, students can and do pursue these achievement goals simul-
taneously (Button, Mathieu, & Zajac, 1996; Harackiewicz et al., 2002; Nicholls,
Cheung, Lauer, & Patashnick, 1989). Recent research has been investigating the rela-
tions between different configurations of mastery and performance-approach goals
with cognitive and meta-cognitive processes. This research has not produced conclu-
sive findings as of yet. Whereas some studies found that students were most likely to
employ complex cognitive processes when they adopted a configuration of high mas-
tery goals and low performance goals (e.g., Meece & Holt, 1993; Pintrich & Garcia,
1991), other studies found that it was the combination of high mastery goals and
high performance goals that was mostly associated with use of efficient cognitive
and meta-cognitive processes (e.g., Bouffard, Boisvert, Vezeau, & Larouche, 1995).
Generally, however, the findings suggest that motivational profiles that involve high
mastery goals are more adaptive than motivational profiles with low mastery goals,
regardless of the level of performance goals (for reviews see Harackiewicz et al.,
2002; Kaplan & Maehr, 2002).
The ubiquitous findings concerning the positive relations between mastery goals
and high-quality engagement, together with the finding that the latter enhances the
transfer of learning, imply that a mastery goals orientation should facilitate transfer
of learned problem-solving strategies to new tasks. When students focus on increasing
their competence and on solving the task, when they invest effort, are willing to take
risks and learn from their mistakes, and when they engage deeply and creatively, they
are more likely to employ complex cognitive operations, and to broaden their cogni-
tive search for strategies that would assist them in solving an assignment.
In contrast, the findings suggest quite strongly that performance-avoidance goals
would be detrimental to transfer. Worry, anxiety, and attention to non-task relevant
information (e.g., othersÕ perceptions of oneÕs ability) are likely to divert attention
from the task and to limit studentsÕ cognitive resources (Elliot, 1999). Moreover, a
concern with appearing unable may also decrease studentsÕ willingness to invest ef-
fort, as effort and ability have an inverse relationship (Nicholls, 1984). Finally, unlike
the clear predictions that emerge from the research concerning the relations of mas-
tery goals and performance-avoidance goals and transfer, the relationship of perfor-
mance-approach goals and transfer is less clearly predictable.
Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22 5
Only very few studies examined so far the relations between achievement goals
and transfer of specific problem-solving strategies. In an early study, Farrell and
Dweck (1985, cited in Dweck, 1986) found that mastery-oriented children achieved
higher transfer scores compared to those of performance-oriented children. Mastery-
oriented children were more active and invested greater effort into their transfer task.
In a more recent study with adults, Ford, Smith, Weissbein, Gully, and Salas (1998)
investigated the roles of individual differences in achievement goals, learning strate-
gies, and training outcomes in the transfer of learning to a more complex decision
making task. They found that mastery goals were positively correlated with meta-
cognitive activity of the learner, which was then related to performance on the trans-
fer task. In a recent study on learning of negotiation strategies, it was found that
teams that were primed with mastery goals performed better on a transfer task than
teams that were primed with performance goals (Bereby-Meyer, Moran, & Unger-
Aviram, 2004).
The current study continues this line of research and examines the effect of the
type of achievement goals on the transfer of knowledge across tasks. In this study,
we focus on the two achievement goals whose relative adaptive nature is still un-
der debate: mastery goals and performance-approach goals (cf. Barron & Hara-
ckiewicz, in press; Pintrich, 2000b). The study uses an experimental design with
two age groups of elementary school students (2nd and 6th graders) to investigate
the effect of mastery and performance-approach achievement goals on two compo-
nents of the transfer of problem-solving strategies: the abstraction of a learned
strategy and the application of an abstracted strategy (Salomon & Perkins,
1989). The study also tests the possible moderating role of perceived ability on
these relations.
In addition to employing experimental conditions that aim to emphasize mastery
goals and performance-approach goals, we also ask participants to self-report on
their achievement goals in the experiment. Many experimental studies that investi-
gate achievement goals assume that participants adopt the achievement goal that
is emphasized by the experimental manipulation and do not include ad-hoc self-re-
port of achievement goals (e.g., Dweck & Leggett, 1988). However, recently,
researchers have emphasized the distinction between the achievement goals that
are stressed in the environment and peopleÕs adoption of personal achievement goals
(e.g., Barron & Harackiewicz, in press; Kaplan, Gheen, et al., 2002a). Whereas some
models in achievement goal theory suggest that environmental emphases on achieve-
ment goals (e.g., on mastery goals) would affect adoption of the same personal
achievement goals (i.e., mastery goals) (cf. Anderman & Maehr, 1994), other models
suggest that there can be a discrepancy between environmental achievement goals
and personal achievement goals (cf., Harackiewicz & Sansone, 1991). That is,
whereas students are aware of the environmental emphasis on certain achievement
goals, they would not necessarily adopt these achievement goals. Moreover, most
experimental conditions emphasize one achievement goal (i.e., mastery goals or
6 Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22
performance goals—for a recent exception see Barron & Harackiewicz, 2001), and
often analyses do not take into account the possibility that students under these con-
ditions may pursue multiple goals (i.e., mastery and performance goals). The use of
self-report of achievement goals will allow the investigation of relations between
multiple goals and transfer.
Based on the finding that active engagement improves transfer, combined with the
finding that mastery goals orientation is associated with this type of engagement and
performance-approach goals orientation may be associated with less adaptive
engagement, our first hypothesis is:
H1. Children in the mastery goals condition would be more likely to transfer a learned
strategy to a new task compared to children in the performance-approach goals
condition.
Furthermore, since Dweck (1986) suggests that performance goals are harmful
mainly to individuals with low perceived ability, our second hypothesis is:
H2. Perceived ability would moderate the relations between motivational goals and
transfer.
This should manifest itself as an interaction between perceived ability and the
motivational goals condition. For children with low perceived ability, less transfer
is expected among children in the performance-approach goals condition than
among children in the mastery goals condition. No such difference is expected for
children with high perceived ability.
In addition, since younger children have difficulties using meta-cognitive strate-
gies such as awareness, monitoring, and regulation (Ghatala, Levin, Pressley, &
Goodwin, 1986; Ghatala, 1986 for an overview), which enhance the transfer of
knowledge, we hypothesize that:
H3. Older children would be more likely than younger children to transfer their
knowledge to a new task.
Finally, based on the current findings in the literature, we also hypothesize that:
H5. Motivational profiles with high mastery goals would be associated with transfer
more than motivational profiles with low mastery goals.
Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22 7
2. Experiment 1
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Participants
Thirty second grade (mean age 7.5) and 30 sixth grade (mean age 11.5) children
from an elementary school in a middle-class neighborhood in Israel participated in
the study.
2.1.2. Instruments
The problem-solving strategy that was chosen for the experiment was the Piage-
tian task of generating all the possible pairs from a set of items (Inhelder & Piaget,
1958; see Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989). This task requires a strategy that consists
of using a matrix (1–2, 1–3, 1–4, 1–5; 2–3, 2–4, 2–5, etc.). For teaching this strategy
we adopted the procedure described by Newman et al. (1989). The task involved five
packs of cards. Each pack had five identical cards of one of the singers from a pop-
ular music band. The participant was asked to match each singer with every other
singer in the band and to match no pair of singers more than once. The analogous
problem for testing the transfer of the strategy consisted of five packs of geometrical
shapes. Each pack had five identical shapes. Two out of the five shapes complete
each other to form a rectangle. An example of the different shapes is presented in
Fig. 1. The participant was required to find all pairs of shapes that complete a rect-
angle—a task that demands making sure that all pairs were tested and calls for using
the strategy learned in the previous task.
Self-reported scales assessing mastery goals and performance-approach goals dur-
ing the experiment, each with five items, were adopted from the Patterns of Adaptive
Learning Survey (PALS) (Midgley et al., 1998). The items were phrased to focus on
the orientation during engagement in the tasks and appear in the Appendix.
2.1.3. Procedure
The experiment consisted of two stages, and each child participated individually.
In the first stage, which was the learning stage, the child was shown the five packs
of cards with singers. The child and the experimenter went over the different singers
together. Then, the child was asked to match each singer with all other singers in the
Fig. 1. An example of the shape that the child was asked to match in the transfer second task.
8 Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22
band and to match each pair of singers no more than once. If the child succeeded in
matching the singers systematically using the strategy, the first stage ended. If the
child failed, the experimenter asked the child to try one more time. If the child failed
in the second try, the experimenter taught the strategy to the child by showing him or
her how to perform it, and the child was asked to complete the task. At the end of the
first stage, all children performed the strategy successfully. The second stage consisted
of the transfer task. In this stage, the child was told that a new game began. Then the
child was shown the five packs of geometrical shapes and was told that some of the
shapes can be put together to form a rectangle. The child was asked to find all pairs
of shapes that complete a rectangle. At this stage, the experimenter assessed whether
the child transferred the matrix strategy to this task, or whether he or she used a trial
and error strategy. Transfer was defined as using and completing the matrix.
Before starting the first stage, the children were randomly assigned to one of three
conditions: mastery goals, performance-approach goals, and control. The instruc-
tions for priming achievement goals were adopted from Dweck and Leggett (1988)
and from Elliot and Harackiewicz (1996). In the mastery goals condition, the chil-
dren were told that they would play a game that will teach them things, will improve
their ability and skills, and that these skills are important in school. They were also
told that in this game the idea is to learn from mistakes in order to improve their
ability (see Dweck & Leggett, 1988). The children in the performance-approach goals
condition were told that the aim of the game is to compare the ability of different
children in playing the game. They were told that most children who played this
game failed to reach the solution, but a few children were very good and that they
had an opportunity to show that they were good in playing the game (see Elliot &
Harackiewicz, 1996). The control group received no explicit priming instructions,
but was simply told that they would be playing a game.
Before beginning the first part of the experiment, participants in all groups re-
ceived an explanation regarding the first task, and they were asked to evaluate their
ability to solve the task on a scale between 1 and 3, where 1 means low ability and 3
means very high ability (see Appendix). This procedure for assessing perceived abil-
ity was adopted and adapted from Elliot and Harackiewicz (1996).
At the end of the two stages all participants answered a questionnaire that as-
sessed their self-reported motivational orientations while playing the games.
3. Results
Table 1
Frequencies of participants in Experiment 1 that transferred the problem-solving strategy as a function of
age and achievement goals condition
2nd Grade 6th Grade
Failed Succeeded Failed Succeeded
Mastery goals 4 6 1 9
Performance-approach goals 8 2 3 7
Control 6 4 5 5
Total 18 12 9 21
the type of achievement goals condition, age, and the interaction between perceived
ability and the type of achievement goal condition as the independent variables, and
the transfer of the strategy as the dependent variable. The model that was tested ap-
pears below.
Transfer ¼ f ða þ bage Age þ bmastery mastery þ bcontrol control
þ bmasteryperceived ability ðmastery perceived abilityÞ
þ bcontrolperceived ability ðcontrol perceived abilityÞÞ:
Transfer equals 1 for succeeding to transfer the strategy and 0 for failing to trans-
fer the strategy. Age is 0 for second grade and 1 for sixth grade. Mastery is a dummy
variable that receives the value 1 for the mastery goals condition and 0 for the other
conditions. Control is a dummy variable that receives the value 1 for the control con-
dition and 0 for the other conditions. The dummies mastery * perceived ability and
control * perceived ability represent the interaction between the type of motivation
goal and the perceived ability.
Table 2 presents the results of the Logit Regression analysis.
In line with Hypothesis H1, a significant effect was found for the mastery goals
dummy variable. The significant positive coefficient (2.05) means that children in
the mastery goals condition, regardless of their age, had a higher probability of
transferring their knowledge compared to the children in the performance-approach
goals condition. No significant difference was found between the performance-ap-
proach goals condition and the control condition.
Table 2
Logit regression results: Probability of transfer of strategy as a function of age and achievement goals
condition in Experiment 1
Explanatory variables Coeff. (p value)
Constant 1.04 (.14)
Age 1.62 (.02)
Mastery 2.05 (.05)
Control .42 (.63)
Mastery * perceived ability 1.23 (.28)
Control * perceived ability .35 (.75)
No. of observations 52
v2(5) = 11.9, p < .03.
10 Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22
Table 3
Motivational profiles of participants in the three experimental groups in Experiment 1
Self-reported orientation
Mastery Performance-approach
Mastery goals 3.91 2.50
Performance-approach goals 4.18 3.66
Control 4.02 3.69
Contrary to Hypothesis H2, the interaction between perceive ability and the type
of goal orientation was not significant. Thus, perceived ability was not found as a
moderator of the less adaptive behavior associated with the performance-approach
goal condition.
In line with Hypothesis H3, a significant effect was found for age. The significant
positive coefficient (1.62) means that overall 6th graders were more likely to transfer
the strategy than 2nd graders.
4. Discussion
Sixth graders were generally more likely to transfer the strategy than were the sec-
ond graders. Transfer of a problem strategy, which involves meta-cognitive processes
Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22 11
In the present study, the motivational priming took place before the first stage of
the experiment. Thus, participants were under the achievement goals condition while
learning the strategy as well as when asked to transfer the strategy to a new task.
However, Salomon and Perkins (1989) note that the central process in transfer—
the abstraction of the strategy—can occur at the point of learning the principle of
the strategy and/or at the point of application of the strategy to a new situation. Sal-
omon and Perkins (1989) term the situation in which the strategy has been initially
learned as a general abstracted principle ‘‘forward-reaching’’ transfer; and the situ-
ation in which a strategy was learned for a context-specific task and the abstraction
occurs only when the new task is encountered ‘‘backward-reaching’’ transfer. The
first experiment does not enable us to assess whether achievement goals affect ‘‘for-
ward-reaching’’ transfer or ‘‘backward-reaching’’ transfer. We therefore conducted a
second experiment that aims to clarify this issue.
In the second experiment, participants learned the problem-solving strategy with-
out motivational priming. Then, just before being asked to engage in the analogous
problem, they were randomly assigned to one of the three motivational conditions. If
in this experiment participants in the mastery goals condition will not demonstrate
more transfer than participants in the other groups, it is likely that the type of
achievement goals affects the learning process, i.e., the ‘‘forward reaching’’ transfer,
but not the retrieval process, i.e., the ‘‘backward-reaching’’ transfer. However, if in
this experiment participants in the mastery goals condition again will transfer more
than participants in the other groups, then, while not excluding the possibility that
achievement goals affect forward-reaching transfer, it will suggest that the type of
achievement goals condition has an effect on ‘‘backward-reaching’’ transfer. For this
experiment we have the same hypotheses as for Experiment 1.
5. Experiment 2
5.1. Method
5.1.1. Participants
Thirty second grade (mean age 7.5) and 30 sixth grade (mean age 11.5) children par-
ticipated in the experiment. They attended an elementary school in the same neighbor-
hood as the one from which the participants in the first experiment were recruited.
5.1.2. Procedure
The procedure was similar to the one in Experiment 1, except that instead of con-
ducting the motivational priming before the learning stage, it was conducted after the
learning task and before the second transfer task of matching the geometrical shapes.
5.2. Results
The analysis focused on the transfer of learning as a function of the type of moti-
vation goals condition, age, perceived ability, and their interactions. Table 4 presents
Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22 13
Table 4
Frequencies of participants in Experiment 2 that transferred the problem-solving strategy as a function of
age and achievement goals condition
2nd Grade 6th Grade
Failed Succeeded Failed Succeeded
Mastery goals 5 4 4 6
Performance-approach goals 9 1 8 2
Control 7 3 3 6
Total 21 8 15 14
1
Since it might be the case that the participants in the different conditions performed differently already
in the first task, we also compared the performance of the different groups in the first task. No difference
was found.
14 Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22
Table 5
Logit regression results: Probability of transfer of strategy as a function of age and achievement goals
condition in Experiment 2
Explanatory variables Coeff. (p value)
Constant 2.48 (.002)
Age 1.23 (.06)
Mastery 3.6 (.008)
Control 1.99 (.03)
Mastery * perceived ability 2.3 (.08)
Control * perceived ability .26 (.78)
No. of observations 59
v2(5) = 15.53 p < .008.
Unlike the results in the first experiment, however, there were apparent differences
between the performance-approach goals condition and the control condition. The
positive coefficient (1.99) suggests that the probability of children in the control con-
dition to transfer their knowledge was higher than the probability of children in the
performance-approach goal condition.
Hypothesis H3 was partially supported. The analysis revealed a marginally signif-
icant effect of age. The older children had overall a higher probability of transferring
the strategy.
Similar to Experiment 1, two scores were computed for assessing childrenÕs self-
reported achievement goals for the second task: mastery goals and performance-ap-
proach goals. CronbachÕs a measures of reliability of these scales were 0.59 and 0.89,
respectively. Table 6 presents participantsÕ scores on the two achievement goals
measures.
To test for similarities and differences between the two experiments, as well as for
the motivational characteristics of the children in the different groups in Experiment
2, we jointly analyzed the data from both experiments. ANOVAs was conducted with
self-reported mastery goals score and self-reported performance-approach goals score
as dependent variables and the experiment (first/second) and the type of experimental
condition (mastery/performance-approach/control) as independent variables. The
analyses indicated that there were no significant differences in level of self-reported
mastery goals, either between students in the two experiments, or among the
experimental conditions. The analyses did suggest that there was a significant differ-
ence in level of self-reported performance-approach goals among participants
(F (2, 113) = 4.25, p < .02, MSe = 1.33). An LSD post hoc comparison indicated that,
similar to Experiment 1, participants in the performance-approach goals condition in
Experiment 2 reported higher performance-approach goals than participants in the
mastery goals condition (p < .01), thus, again, providing partial support for Hypoth-
esis H4. The analysis also indicated a significant interaction between the experiment
and the type of experimental condition (F (2, 113) = 3.4, p < .04, MSe = 1.33). Fig. 2
presents the mean of the self-reported performance-approach goals score as a
Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22 15
Table 6
Motivational profiles of participants in the three experimental groups in Experiment 2
Self-reported orientation
Mastery Performance approach
Mastery goals 4.35 2.77
Performance-approach goals 4.18 3.08
Control 4.23 2.62
Fig. 2. Mean performance-approach goals score as a function of experiment and the type of achievement
goals condition.
function of the experiment and the type of experimental condition. The figure shows
that in Experiment 1 there was no difference in the self-reported performance-ap-
proach goals between the control condition and the performance-approach goals
condition, whereas in Experiment 2 there was no difference in self-reported perfor-
mance-approach goals between the control condition and the mastery goals condi-
tion. The similar motivational configuration of participants in the mastery goals
condition and the control condition provides an explanation for the lack of difference
between these two groups in rate of transfer. Thus, similar to the findings from
Experiment 1, the findings concerning the self-report achievement goals from Exper-
iment 2 also suggest that profiles with high performance-approach goals were again
associated with lower rate of transfer than were profiles with low performance-ap-
proach goals.
6. Discussion
The results concerning transfer in the second experiment are in line with the re-
sults of the first experiment. Here, too, we found that the group under the mastery
goals condition did better on the transfer task than did the group that performed un-
der the performance-approach goals condition. The findings suggest that achieve-
ment goals conditions can affect the ‘‘backward reaching’’ transfer—the process of
16 Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22
retrieving a relevant strategy that was learned previously for use in a new situation.
This finding does not exclude, however, the possibility that achievement goals also
affect the ‘‘forward reaching’’ process of abstracting a concrete strategy at the time
of learning. Future research should investigate this possibility.
Similar to the findings from Experiment 1, the findings associating participantsÕ
self-reported achievement goals suggested that performance-approach goals were
the critical factor in the profile that was related to a decreased rate in transfer. How-
ever, unlike the findings in Experiment 1, in which participantsÕ motivational profiles
were similar in the performance-approach goals condition and the control condition,
in Experiment 2 the motivational profiles were similar in the mastery goals condition
and the control condition. This may suggest that unlike in Experiment 1, where par-
ticipantsÕ initial motivation for the task was high mastery goals and high perfor-
mance-approach goals, in Experiment 2, participantsÕ initial motivation for the task
was high mastery goals and low performance-approach goals. Thus, whereas it may
be that the effects of the experimental conditions on participantsÕ mastery goals may
have been limited by a ceiling effect, the effect may have been an increase in perfor-
mance-approach goals among children in the performance-approach goals condition.
7. General discussion
The nature of the experimental conditions suggests that mastery goals enhance
transfer. However, contrary to Hypothesis H5, the examination of participantsÕ
self-reported motivational orientations profiles suggests that it was the high levels
of performance-approach goals that interfered with transfer. In both experiments,
the findings pointed to lower probability of transfer when children reported higher
performance-approach goals.
The concern with appearing able, particularly among young students, may direct
attention towards impression-management and away from the assignment. This may
lead children to employ cognitive strategies that they perceive would lead to a quick
solution but that are detrimental to high level problem solving and transfer (cf. Kap-
lan & Midgley, 1997). Additionally, the concern with appearing able may also be
associated with worry, ruminative thoughts, and negative affect that could interfere
with the operation of working memory (Linnenbrink, Ryan, & Pintrich, 1999). Such
interference might affect the resources that children can use for sophisticated cogni-
tive operations and thus can impair performance. In addition, the focus on appear-
ing able, which is related to the salience of the inverse relationship between ability
and effort—that is, that high effort means low ability (Nicholls, 1984)—may also af-
fect the level of effort that students are willing to exert and thus their willingness to
employ demanding cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies.
Interestingly, the detrimental effects of performance-approach goals on transfer
were found among children that, overall, reported high levels of mastery goals. These
findings contradict recent research that stresses the adaptive nature of the joint pursuit
of mastery and performance-approach goals (Barron & Harackiewicz, 2000; Hara-
ckiewicz et al., 2002; Pintrich, 2000b). Indeed, researchers suggest that the joint pursuit
of mastery and performance-approach goals may have a positive effect on late adoles-
cents but not necessarily on younger children (Bouffard, Vezeau, & Bordeleau, 1998).
The present study suggests that among children, the joint pursuit of high mastery and
high performance-approach goals may be less adaptive for transfer of problem-solving
strategies to new situations than is the pursuit of high mastery and low performance-
approach goals. Yet, it is important to note that the reliability coefficients for the mas-
tery goals were low. This might be due to the high social desirability of this scale.
The use of both experimental manipulations of achievement goals and self-reported
achievement goals raises some interesting questions. First, self-report of motivational
orientations in the control groups seems to suggest that children in the two samples
had somewhat different motivational characteristics. Children in the control group
in the first sample reported a profile of high mastery and high performance-approach
goals, while children in the control group in the second sample reported a profile with
high mastery and low performance-approach goals. Second, partially in line with
Hypothesis H4, participantsÕ self-reported achievement goals were only partially con-
cordant with the experimental conditions. This suggests that environmental condi-
tions may have an effect on studentsÕ achievement goals, however, not always in a
one-to-one manner. Indeed, using the control group as a reference, the motivational
manipulation that seemed to have an effect in the first experiment was the emphasis
on mastery goals, and the consequence was a reduction in the childrenÕs self-reported
performance-approach goals. The motivational manipulation that seemed to have an
18 Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22
Appendix
1. On a scale from 1 to 3, where 1 means low ability and 3 means high ability, how
do you perceive your ability to solve the problem that we described to you.
Mastery goals
1. When I played the games, I thought that I was improving, even if I was making
mistakes.
2. When I played the games I was thinking that I really want to learn about these
games.
3. When I played the games I was thinking that these games are interesting.
4. When I played the games I was thinking that I like playing games that make me
think.
5. When I played the games I wanted to improve my ability to play.
Y. Bereby-Meyer, A. Kaplan / Contemporary Educational Psychology 30 (2005) 1–22 19
Performance-approach goals
1. When I played the games, one of my goals was to do better than other children.
2. When I played the games I wanted to show that I am better than other children.
3. When I played the games I wanted to be better than other children.
4. When I played the games I was thinking that I would like other children to think
that IÕm good at these games.
5. When I played the games I was thinking that I wanted the experimenter to think
that IÕm smarter than other children.
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