Quadratic Models May Provide a Useful Set of Models that Detect Combined Effects of Achievement Goals on Academic Attainment

There is a consensus of opinion among proponents of theories of achievement goals that people may choose to pursue two different types of goals: mastery goals that focus on developing competence through task mastery and learning and performance goals that focus on demonstrating competence by outperforming others (Ames and Archer, 1987; Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Nicholls, 1989; Ames, 1992; Pintrich, 2000). Research in educational contexts indicates that mastery goals are reliably associated with positive outcomes such as high intrinsic motivation, high task-interest, and use of deep learning strategies (Harackiewicz et al., 2000, 2008). However, performance goals exhibit a stronger relationship with high task performance than mastery goals (Senko et al., 2011; Van Yperen et al., 2015). This is more likely to be observed when tendencies to pursue mastery or performance goals are coupled with approach reactions rather than avoidance reactions (Senko et al., 2011). The positive effects of performance goals and mastery goals on the same or distinct educational outcomes have also lead researchers to propose that students who pursue both goal types simultaneously may experience more positive outcomes than students who adopt one type of goal only (Harackiewicz et al., 1998). The reason for this is that students pursuing both goals simultaneously may accrue the benefits associated with each goal (Senko et al., 2011). Accordingly, Barron and Harackiewicz (2001) advised researchers to examine the combined effects of achievement goals on outcomes by examining whether the following regression equation explained observations: