Students Pursuing Mastery Goals vs Those Pursuing Performance Goals

There is a hypothesis that students pursuing mastery goals favor instructors who stimulate and challenge them intellectually, whereas those pursuing performance goals favor instructors who present material clearly and provide clear cues about how to succeed. Senko, Belmonte and Yakhkind (2012) tested this hypothesis and found that students’ achievement goals corresponded to their views about the most essential instructor qualities. Mastery goals predicted greater demand for professors who intellectually challenged students and possessed topic expertise, whereas performance goals predicted high demand for professors who presented material clearly and provided cues about how to succeed in the course.