Influences

In order to make sense of all the influences that contribute to how students learn and achieve within schools, according to goal theory, we must understand the various pressures that students are under as well as the environments in which they are expected to learn and perform in. First off, phycologist experts largely believe in "self-worth theory", which assumes that search for self-acceptance is the highest priority of humanity (Covington, 1992). Now this idea of mankind's search for self-acceptance manifests itself in students in a few simple ways. One of them being that students try aim to showcase and establish mentally a sense of competency within school. For some students this competency may come in the form of approval from their peers, academic success (within test results and learning new skills and information), or even avoiding attention all together. Overall, students do everything they can to be the hero of their own story that never fails and is above anything else, adequate. However, the costs of writing each student's own narrative are the exact influences of the motivational patterns associated with Achievement Goal Theory.  

Furthermore, students that don't see their own ability status as adequate within the school setting and don't want other students to judge them for it are usual the ones that practice failure-avoidance strategies. These students might put in little effort into assignments or tasks to have a scapegoat when they perform poorly on the assignment or can't do it. To them, this option is much better than putting a great deal of effort into a task and failing at it, which, to them, would exasperate peer judgement of inadequacy. Even worse though, some students that see their ability status as inadequate might not attempt or try at tasks or assignments at all. With this strategy, students figure they can never fail, because they didn't try, hence avoiding feeling inadequate or appearing so to others. This idea of failure-avoidance is the same reson why some students cheat on tests (Covington, 1992). Cheating students figure that they would rather fail by getting caught cheating, than fail by trying their best and feeling inadequate.

Moreover, to students, their enviornments are overseen and directed by the most judging figures of all, teachers. Teachers are consistently and constantly monitoring student behvior, progress and learning. As result, a great deal of students seek to look and be percieved as adequate (even if it is a facade) in front of their teachers. This leads some students to find various ways of achieving percieved adequacy for their teachers. Some students develop what is known as "piloting", where students hesitate enough or give a provisional answer when the teacher asks them a question so that the teacher will lead them to the answer (Covington, 1992). Some students may put forth "false effort", where students show just enough engagement to avoid ridicule or punishment from their teacher. Some students might even self-handicap themselves or give themselves an academic "wooden leg", both of which involving students claiming some impediment that serves as ready excuse if the student fails (Rohani). All of these stratgies to maintain percieved adequacy within school helps students set low enough standards (or even non existant standards) for themselves that they can not possibly fail at. 

On another note, influences of achievement goal theory are not limited to strategies that help students avoid perceptions of inadequacy. Rather, some influences related to achievement goal theory push students beyond the reasonable limits of success. Some students succeed and achieve not because they want to, but rather because they don't want to fail. "Overstriding" as it is refered to involves those students that only succeed, but never lower the standards put in place by others. Instead, they intentionally push themselves so that they can never fail. For these students, failure is not an option. Therefore, when they face failure they can't learn from it or deal with it as result of their past of exclusively success and high achievment. Students might also practice "disidentification", which sees students devalue things that threatens their sense of wellbeing. This includes students devalueing things such as friends or hobbies if they get in the way of achieving academic success. Students that struggle with racial identity and feelings of inadequatecy have a tendency to practice "Acting White", which sees students changing language or dialect to speak standard English, changing friend groups that match their new identity, and even changing cultural practices. The idea behind why students choose to do this is that students percieve themselves as someone of the dominant culture and figure that they will have success and achievement because of the changes that they make.

All in all, personal, peer and teacher influences cause students to devlop a number of strategies and personas that allow students to achieve at a level in which makes each individual student feel adequate. Students either develop a sense of Learning/Mastery goal orientation or Performance goal orientation, however, both are in pursuit of satisfying each individuals' self-worth.