Performance-approach goal effects depend on how they are defined: Meta-analytic evidence from multiple educational outcomes.

Achievement goal theory originally defined performance-approach goals as striving to demonstrate competence to outsiders by outperforming peers. The research, however, has operationalized the goals inconsistently, emphasizing the competence demonstration element in some cases and the peer comparison element in others. A meta-analysis by Hulleman et al. (2010) discovered that students’ academic achievement was negatively predicted by performance-approach goals that focus on appearing talented, but positively predicted by performance-approach goals that focus on outperforming peers. The present meta-analysis extends that pattern to numerous other educational outcomes, such as competence perceptions and self-regulation. It does so while also removing a confound (i.e., the sample’s mean age) that varies systematically along with the type of performance-approach goal measure employed in studies. Discussion explores when and why the 2 types of performance-approach goals are most likely to diverge versus converge. It also considers 2 potential directions that goal theory can take to incorporate the 2 performance-approach goals.