106 I. THEORETICAL  PERSPECTI vES AND  CONCEPT uAL uNITS
achievement goals are cognitive represen -
tations of a competence-  related possibility 
that an individual is committed to approach 
or to avoid. Achievement goals are differenti -
ated according to how competence is defined 
and valenced. The definition  of competence 
refers to the standard used in competence 
evaluation (task- or self-  referenced vs. 
other-  referenced), whereas the valence  re-
fers to the positive or negative focus of the 
goal (approaching competence vs. avoiding 
incompetence). As seen in Figure 4.1, the 
mastery-  performance definition distinction 
is crossed by the approach–  avoidance va -
lence distinction, which results in 2 × 2 types 
of achievement goals: mastery-  approach 
goals (the aim to master a task; improve over 
time), performance-  approach goals (the aim 
to outperform others), mastery-  avoidance 
goals (the aim to not fall short of mastering 
a task; not decline over time), performance- 
avoidance goals (the aim to not be outper -
formed by others).
Operationalization and  Consequences 
of Achievement  Goals
It is crucial for the operational definition 
of achievement goals  to be consistent with 
their conceptual definition. From our per -
spective, this means that achievement goal 
items should assess the goal separate from the non-goal-  related elements, in particular, 
stripped of any peripheral reason content 
(e.g., self-  presentation motives; Elliot & Mu -
rayama, 2008; Hulleman, Schrager, Bod -
mann, & Harackiewicz, 2010; Hulleman 
& Senko, 2010). An example of a measure 
that carefully attends to these issues is the 
Achievement Goal Questionnaire—  Revised 
(Elliot & Murayama, 2008). In this mea -
sure, the performance-  approach goal items, 
for instance, focus exclusively on approach -
ing normative competence (e.g., “My goal is 
to perform better than the other students”), 
whereas the performance-  avoidance goal 
items focus exclusively on avoiding norma -
tive incompetence (e.g., “My goal is to avoid 
performing poorly compared to others”; El -
liot & Murayama, 2008, p. 617).
We believe that using a constrained  op-
erational definition of achievement goals 
is the optimal way to determine the conse -
quences of the core goal component (akin to 
the signal) detached from reason elements 
(akin to the noise). Recent meta-  analyses 
relying (or mostly relying) on such a con -
strained  definition shed light on the conse -
quences of achievement goals per se. First, 
meta-  analyses show that focal mastery- 
approach goals are predominantly ben -
eficial  for achievement- relevant outcomes. 
Mastery-  approach goals are a robust posi -
tive predictor of interest (Baranik, Stanley, 
Definition of Competence
Task- or self-referenced standard 
(using task requirement or past 
attainment as a benchmark to 
assess competence)Other-referenced standard (using 
others’ attainment as a benchmark 
to assess competence)
Valence of 
CompetencePositive  
(approaching 
competence)Mastery-approach goals  
master a task; improve over time 
predominantly beneficial: primarily 
for interestPerformance-approach goals  
outperform others  
predominantly beneficial: primarily 
for performance
Negative  
(avoiding 
incompetence)Mastery-avoidance goals  
not fall short of mastering a task; 
not decline over time 
not beneficial; neither for interest 
nor for performancePerformance-avoidance goals  
not be outperformed by others 
not beneficial; neither for interest 
nor for performance
FIGURE 4.1. The 2 × 2 achievement goal framework. Adapted from Elliot and McGregor (2001). The 
nature of the pattern of achievement-  relevant outcomes associated with each goal is reported in italics .