Mastery Goals vs. Performance Goals
In the Classroom

What do we mean when we say a Montessori education
instills mastery goals in students?

The lead article in this month’s Teacher’s College Record (NY: Columbia Teachers College) examines the roles of students and teachers in student participation in classroom learning activities (www.tcrecord.org). Turner and Patrick’s findings reinforce the role of the Montessori teacher in creating a classroom environment that emphasizes understanding, gives students opportunities to explain their understanding, views mistakes as learning experiences, models positive enthusiasm and emotion about learning, and encourages students to help each other.

Students with mastery goals work and study to increase their ability to master the material. Students with performance goals are concerned with how they perform in comparison to other students or in relation to established standards, like grades or standardized test scores. In other words, students with performance goals operate out of anxiety. Students with mastery goals choose challenging tasks, adapt learning strategies to the task at hand, ask for help when they need it, and hold positive attitudes in relation to their tasks, the classroom environment, and the self. On the other hand, students with performance goals prefer easy tasks, avoid active engagement in their work and the classroom, and instead focus on grades and comparing themselves to others.

It is no surprise that Turner and Patrick found the teacher has a lot to do with this. It is a primary reason we do not use a grading system in Montessori classrooms. A teacher who facilitates mastery goals: (a) emphasizes the importance of understanding and helps students understand; (b) holds students accountable for what they have learned (e.g., asks students to explain their understanding); (c) encourages student effort and persistence and views mistakes as learning experiences; and (d) expresses positive emotion and enthusiasm about learning.

On the other hand, a teacher who emphasizes performance goals: (a) emphasizes right answers or following directions rather than understanding; (b) emphasizes work completion and “perfect” performance, rather than learning; (c) expresses negative affect, such as threats or sarcasm; and (d) uses social comparison (e.g., implies that some students are better or smarter than others).
In the current wave of educational reform, where a teacher’s and a school’s performance is “graded” according to standardized test scores, performance goals become paramount to teachers. Students are socialized into this classroom structure and they internalize, or incorporate, those meanings into their own understandings. This leads to lowered motivation to learn and higher reports of avoidance behaviors (i.e., students who avoid classroom participation and challenging work).

At EVM, we are committed to building to mastery goals in our students. Students work with materials until they have mastered them and the teacher is sure they understand what they are doing. Turner and Patrick (2004) followed two students for two years in math class. While one student did well the first year with a teacher who thought he was brilliant but lazy and so, helped him when he went up to the board or answered a question, the other student did not do well in her class because she was ignored or scolded by the teacher (e.g., when she did not know how she had solved a problem, the teacher assumed she had not tried and said, “You said, ‘Oh, forget this!? ‘I have to check ninety nine umbers, forget this’?”). In the second year, the first student did not receive the attention from the teacher and it was more obvious that he was working from a performance goal orientation. The second student did not receive a lot of attention either but she was a hard worker who sought to understand what she was doing and it was clear she worked from a mastery goal orientation. She did better in the second year because the teacher did not use threats, sarcasm, or social comparisons.

Dr. Montessori pointed out that the teacher is the most important “piece of equipment” in the classroom. She emphasized the teacher as a facilitator, mentor, and humble servant of the student. As Montessori educators, our most important job is preparing the environment so that we meet students’ needs. Our classroom structures are based on the developmental needs of our students and most important are those goals which lead to lifelong learning. Educators who are drawn to the Montessori philosophy generally hold mastery goals themselves and are lifelong learners. We know that the journey to the entire truth is a path of errors—it is our mistakes that teach us the most.

-Dr. Pamela Autrey

For an additional comparison of Montessori and Traditional education, click here