Goals and perceived ability: Impact on student valuing, Self-Regulation, and Persistence

We examined the motivational patterns and self-regulatory activities of 119 students in introductory statistics. Toward the end of the course subjects were given a questionnaire which assessed perceived ability, goal orientation (learning and performance), valuing of statistics (intrinsic and extrinsic), and the extent to which subjects used self-regulatory activities such as goal-setting, self-monitoring, and task-appropriate cognitive strategies. Predictions from Dweck's goal orientation theory were tested. The findings were generally consistent with the theoretical predictions; however, the predicted interaction of dominant goal orientation and perceived ability failed to emerge.