Causes of Motivational Patterns Within Goal Theory
Performance Avoidence
Causes of Performance Avoid Orientation
Performance avoidance is associated with low educational expectations and/or aspirations, and is generally regarded as undesirable in a school setting. There are a variety of causes for this spanning over different age groups. One primary cause of this is fear of failure and judgement. It is common in students deflect and avoid questions in class to negate the possibility of embarrassment.
Habits that Foster Performance Avoidance:
Performance avoidance is found when someone believes they lack the ability to succeed or to learn. It is likely that this comes from negative childhood experiences.
Performance Approach
Causes of Performance Approach Orientation
Performance approach goal orientation is shown through the desire to demonstrate intelligence in relation to your peers. With an emphasis on being better than others, many of the causes to this theory are based around competition. For this reason, students with a naturally competitive disposition will fall into these habits. This can be linked to having high intrinsic motivation in competition based fields such as sports.
Habits that Foster Performance Approach:
Performance approach highlights extrinsic motivation. A primary factor in the performance approach theory is competition. Students who participate in competitive activities of all kinds commonly show signs of the performance approach theory.
Mastery
Causes of Mastery Orientation
Mastery orientation revolves around a high intrinsic motivation for educations. Students in this category are motivated to learn for the sake of learning. These students have a desire to become more intelligent from their own volition. These students are often willing to be vulnerable in educational setting, revealing their lack of knowledge on a subject in an effort to gain a better understanding of the material.
Habits that Foster Mastery Orientation:
Habits that foster mastery orientation are based around personal development and challenging ones self. A good method to cultivate this is having the access to chose activities that are reflective of personal interests. This will encourage a higher level of intrinsic motivation.
Relation to Calvin
Performance Avoid
One of the most apparent causes of Calvin's avoidance tendencies and his lack of motivation revolves around his parents. While it is apparent that they want him to learn, they often employ ineffective tactics that lead to resentment and do not encourage learning. An example of this would be his father using fear-based motivation to try and get Calvin to take his education more serious. His father also tends to ignore Calvin's issues. He conistantly disregards Calvin's complaints and offers little sympathy.
Performance Approach
Despite his lack of volition to learn in school, Calvin frequently shows performance approach tendencies. This is due to Calvin's desire to please his parents. In the comics, we often see Calvin attempt to get better grades in an attempt to gain hihs parents approval.
Mastery
Calvin frequently sets challenging goals for himself outside of the educational setting. He has a vivid imagination, which fuels his intrinsic motivation for learning about the world, as shown in his many travels with his partner, Hobbs. This likely originated in his childhood with access to literature about the world and its history.