| Summary: | This research studies whether different types of motivation have an effect on students' attitudes towards their own ability and success. This is assessed through a comparison of process goals and performance goals within a series of lessons, terms which have been adapted from the research of Dweck & Leggett (1988), amongst others as cited in the literature review. A study of such research has revealed that generally intrinsic motivation as ‘doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable’ is preferable (Ryan & Deci, 2000, p. 55), and that this is encouraged through a focus on the process of an activity rather than an ultimate goal. The main issue here is whether students work more effectively if this goal is not made obvious to them during a lesson. The suggested benefit of focussing on process rather than performance is that students are encouraged to recognise enjoyment in each task, so that they spend time and effort improving their skills. In contrast a performance focus increases the chances of choosing an easy task or rushing through a piece of work in order to obtain the results expected (Dweck, 1999). Furthermore performance feedback seems more summative and less helpful for future work (Corpus & Lepper, 2007); comments such as “Well done you did it !” provide nothing useful, while process feedback reflects upon skills which can be applied repeatedly.
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