(Re)Conceptualizing Goals

• In Event: Motivation and Learning: What Is Provocative and/or Novel?

Abstract

In this presentation I describe different approaches to the concept of goals in different theoretical explanations of motivation and engagement, consider their limitations, and point out some tensions between them. Approaches to understanding goals and motivation have varied from psychological theories that aim to predict the relationship of goals to actions and beliefs across settings to more situated approaches that focus on the ways goals arise and are related to various dimensions of individuals in particular contexts. The presentation is organized around metatheoretical questions common to the study of goals, including which goals should be studied and promoted in educational settings, the nature of the relationship between individual and context, and the relation of goals to the meaning of activity. This examination of the literature results in two provocative claims:

1. Goals are not context-free. Despite the ways goals have often been studied in psychology, goals are not merely internal constructs but are aspects of activity systems drawn from cultural models. When adopted, goals position individuals in relation to those ongoing social structures. Goals can be understood in relation to the meaning(s) of activity; the same action can be pursued for multiple reasons in the same setting by different individuals, depending in part on their individual sense of those meanings. But the responses of others to those actions will depend on their interpretations of the underlying motives, and thus will contribute to the ongoing development of the collective meaning system.

2. A better understanding of the processes involved in the development and pursuit of goals might be the most useful goal for motivation researchers. Examining the relationships of individual goals to the meaning systems in which they reside could shed light on the question of which goals to promote in particular educational contexts. But such research should consider the multiple goals individuals might bring to those settings, how their identities in and out of those settings might contribute to their decisions to take up or reject promoted goals, and how the goals available in specific settings to specific people change through ongoing interaction and negotiation.

Author

• Susan B. Nolen, University of Washington - Seattle