Goal orientation

Goal orientation, or achievement orientation, is an "individual disposition towards developing or validating one's ability in achievement settings". In general, an individual can be said to be mastery or performance oriented, based on if one's aim is to develop one's ability or toone's ability, respectively. the mastery orientation is also sometimes spoke to as a learning orientation.

Goal orientation included to how an individual interprets & reacts to tasks, resulting in different patterns of cognition, impact and behavior. Developed within a social-cognitive framework, the orientation goal theory proposes that students' motivation as living as achievement-related behaviors can be understood by considering the reasons or purposes they undertake while engaged in academic work. The focus is on how students think approximately themselves, their tasks, and their performance. purpose orientations hit been shown to be associated with individuals' academic achievement, adjustment, and well-being.

Research has examined goal orientation as a motivation variable that is useful for recruitment, climate and culture, performance appraisal, and choice. It has also been used to predict sales performance, adaptive performance, goal setting, learning and adaptive behaviors in training, and leadership.

State versus trait

There has been debate as to if goal orientation should be operationalized as a state or as a trait. Throughout the goal orientation literature, there are inconsistencies about the conceptualization of the stability of the construct. For example, DeShon & Gillespie stated that goal orientation has been conceptualized as a trait, quasi-trait, and state. They assert that whether researchers conceptualize goal orientation as a trait or a state "depends on the breadth of the inference that the researcher is attempting to support".: 1115  State goal orientation refers to the goal one has in a specific situation, and is similar to trait goal orientation in that it represents one's preference in an achievement situation.

However, state goal orientation is "specific to the task and context at hand".: 5  For example, VandeWalle, Cron & Slocum stated that goal orientation can be domain-specific, and said that this is the possible for an individual to realize a strong mastery orientation in their academic domain but non in their work domain. Trait goal orientation refers to the "consistent sample of responses in achievement situations based on the individual's standing on goal orientation dimensions". This opinion of goal orientation treats the construct as a stable, individual difference characteristic.

Button, Mathieu, & Zajac take an integrative notion of the construct, stating that goal orientation is best categorized as a relativelyindividual difference variable that can be influenced by situational and contextual characteristics. They found that when few situational cues are present, individuals undertake their dispositional goal orientations. However, when "dispositional goal orientations predispose individuals to adopt particular response patterns across situations, situational characteristics may cause them to adopt a different or less acute response pattern for a specific situation".: 40  Therefore, trait and state goal orientations interact, and both should be considered simultaneously.