Synthesizing the Evidence on Classroom Goal Structures in Middle and Secondary Schools

Abstract

This meta-analysis and narrative review synthesizes the literature on classroom goal structures and their relationships with student outcomes, focusing additionally on the ways in which these constructs are operationalized across research studies. Specifically, this study evaluates the relationships between students’ perceptions of mastery and performance classroom goal structures and secondarily of teacher support as related to academic achievement and motivational and psychological outcomes. The findings document that students’ perception of the mastery emphasis of their classrooms is related to a number of positive socio-emotional outcomes and to academic achievement measures and that extrinsically focused classroom goal structures have an overall negative effect on academic achievement. Also, teachers’ socio-emotional and instructional support was found to relate positively to students’ academic achievement, particularly to normed achievement measures rather than grades, as well as to socio-emotional factors including self-efficacy, interest in class, and prosocial behaviors and goals.