Teachers' Communication of Goal Orientations in Four Fifth-Grade Classrooms

We investigated the explicit and implicit ways in which 4 fifth-grade teachers communicated an emphasis on mastery and performance goal orientations to their students. We used survey data about perceptions of the classroom mastery and performance goal structures from 223 students in 10 classes to identify 4 classrooms with significantly different motivational profiles. We then used observational data to describe teachers' talk and practices regarding tasks, authority, recognition, grouping, evaluation, time, social interactions, and help-seeking in those classes. We found that teachers perceived as having a high mastery focus spoke about learning as an active process, and this was reflected in their practices. They required involvement from all students, emphasized effort, and encouraged student interaction. Those teachers also exhibited social and affective support for, and concern about, students' learning and progress. These practices were not observed in low mastery-focused classes. The teachers perceived as having a high performance focus emphasized formal assessments, grades, and students' relative performance to a substantially greater extent than the low performance-focused teachers.