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Academic and Social Motivational Influences on

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Article in Educational Psychology Review · June 1998

DOI: 10.1023/A:1022137619834

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Educational Psychology Review, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1998

Academic and Social Motivational Influences

on Students' Academic Performance
Kathryn R. Wentzel1,2 and Allan Wigfield1,2

We discuss ways in which aspects of academic and social motivation interact

to influence student's academic performance. Research on academic and
social motivational constructs is reviewed, focusing on students' ability and
efficacy beliefs, control beliefs, achievement values, and achievement goal
orientations. Relations between academic and social motivational processes are
discussed, as well as how motivational processes from both domains might
interact to influence academic outcomes. We also discuss motivation from the
perspective of contextual factors and school socialization processes that have
the potential to influence student motivation and subsequent performance. In
this regard, teachers' instructional practices and interpersonal relationships with
students are highlighted as potentially powerful factors influencing student
motivation and performance.
KEY WORDS: competence beliefs; achievement values; personal goals; social relationships.

INTRODUCTION

Why do some students eagerly take on new intellectual challenges

whereas others devalue and disengage from academic activities? Motivation
theorists often attribute such divergent levels of engagement to differences
in competence-related beliefs (Bandura, 1986; Eccles et al., 1983), values
associated with success (Wigfield and Eccles, 1992), and achievement goal
orientation (Ames, 1992; Nichols, 1979). Recent evidence also suggests that
students' social motivation, and their relations with teachers and peers,

1Department of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland.

2Correspondence should be directed to Kathryn R. Wentzel or Allan Wigfield, Department
of Human Development, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-1131. Order
of authorship is alphabetical. Both authors contributed equally to this work.

155
1040-726X/98/0600-0155$15.00/0 O 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation
156 Wentzel and Wigfield

strongly influence their academic performance and general adjustment to

school (Juvonen and Wentzel, 1996).
In this article, we propose that a better understanding of students' aca-
demic learning and performance will be achieved when both social and
academic motivational processes are taken into consideration. Indeed, our
review suggests that ways in which students integrate and coordinate their
academic and social concerns has a powerful impact on their academic suc-
cess at school. We also propose that the social context within which learning
takes place can have a powerful influence on students' academic and social
motivation at school. In particular, teachers' instructional practices as well
as the quality of their interpersonal interactions with students appear to
make critical contributions to students' motivation and performance.
Based on this perspective, we review work on crucial academic and
social motivational constructs that relate to and predict students' persist-
ence, choice of academic activities to pursue, and academic performance.
Persistence, choice, and actual performance are important behavioral indi-
cators of student motivation (see Eccles, Wigfield, and Schiefele, 1998;
Maehr, 1984). We begin with a consideration of academic motivation and
student outcomes.

ACADEMIC MOTIVATION

There are many different motivation constructs and theories, and a

complete review of them is beyond the scope of this article (see Eccles et
al., 1998; Pintrich and Schunk, 1996 for more complete reviews of the lit-
erature on motivation). We focus on constructs that have been primary in
several current motivation theories: competence-related beliefs, control be-
liefs, subjective task values, and achievement goal orientations.

Children's Competence-Related Beliefs

One set of constructs concerns children's sense of being able to ac-

complish different tasks or activities. The primary constructs include chil-
dren's ability beliefs, expectancies for success, and self efficacy. Ability beliefs
are children's evaluations of their competence in different areas. Re-
searchers have documented that children's and adolescents' ability beliefs
relate to and predict positively their performance in different achievement
domains (e.g., Eccles et al., 1983; Meece, Wigfield, and Eccles, 1990; Stipek
and Maclver, 1989). Expectancies for success refer to students' sense of
how well they will do on an upcoming task, instead of their general belief
Academic and Social Motivation 157

of how good they are at the task (Stipek, 1984). These beliefs also predict
children's achievement in different subject areas.
Taking math as an example, when students think they are competent
at math—and expect to continue to do well in it—they also tend to achieve
better in math (Eccles et al., 1983; Meece et al., 1990). Meece et al. (1990)
examined how 7th through 9th grade students' math ability beliefs and ex-
pectancies for success predicted their subsequent math performance. Even
when controlling for previous math performance, students' ability beliefs
strongly predicted their expectancies for success in math, which strongly
predicted their subsequent mathematics performance. In fact, the linkages
of ability beliefs and expectancies to subsequent achievement were stronger
than the direct link of previous achievement to subsequent achievement.
Bandura (1986) proposed that individuals' efficacy expectations, or their
beliefs that they can accomplish a given task or activity, are a major de-
terminant of activity choice, willingness to expend effort, and persistence.
For instance, when students think they can accomplish an assignment in
an English class, they are more likely to choose to do it, to keep working
on it when they encounter difficulty, and to ultimately complete the as-
signment successfully. Bandura distinguished efficacy expectations from
competence beliefs primarily in terms of level of specificity. He argued that
efficacy beliefs about particular tasks are better predictors of students' be-
havior than their more general competence beliefs (see Bandura, 1997; Pa-
jares, 1996; Schunk, 1991 for further discussion of efficacy beliefs and their
relations to student performance).

Children's Control Beliefs

Researchers interested in individuals' control beliefs originally distin-

guished two such beliefs, internal and external locus of control (Rotter,
1966). Internal locus of control means individuals think they control the
outcome; external locus of control means the individual perceives that the
environment exerts the control. In general, research in this tradition shows
that children and adolescents with a stronger internal locus of control tend
to be higher achievers (Findley and Cooper, 1983; Stipek and Weisz, 1981).
The original locus of control construct was expanded in important ways
by motivation researchers, such as Weiner (1985), who included locus of
control as a dimension of his attribution model of motivation. Connell
(1985) also proposed that unknown control beliefs be studied. Unknown
control means the individual is unsure why a certain outcome occurred.
Connell found that children who lack an understanding of what controls
their achievement outcomes achieve less well than children with an internal
158 Wentzel and Wigfield

locus of control. Connell and Wellborn (1991) extended this work into a
broader theoretical framework that links competence and control beliefs,
and that also includes the needs for autonomy and relatedness see also
Skinner, 1995; Skinner and Belmont, 1993). (This work is discussed in more
detail later.) The crucial implication of this work is that students who be-
lieve they control their achievement outcomes tend to do better in school,
and they persist when encountering difficulties.

Children's Subjective Task Values

Children's subjective task values refer to their purposes or incentives

for doing different activities (Eccles et al., 1983; Wigfield and Eccles, 1992).
Students' purposes for an activity are central to their decisions about how
avidly they pursue an activity. Even if individuals believe they are compe-
tent and efficacious to accomplish a task, and think they can control the
outcomes, they may not do the task or activity if they have no reason or
incentive for doing so.
Eccles, Wigfield, and their colleagues (Eccles et al., 1983; Wigfield,
1994; Wigfield and Eccles, 1992) defined different components of subjective
task values as interest value, attainment value, and utility value. Interest
value, or how much the individual likes or is interested in the activity, is
somewhat similar to the construct of intrinsic motivation, in that it deals
with the individual's own reasons for valuing a task (see Deci and Ryan,
1985). Attainment value is the importance of the activity to the individual.
Utility value is the perceived usefulness of an activity. It thus has some simi-
larities to the construct of extrinsic motivation, in that the motivation comes
from what the activity brings on, rather than from wanting to do the activity
for its own sake.
There are several major findings from Eccles, Wigfield, and their
colleagues' work on children's and adolescents' subjective task values.
First, Eccles and Wigfield (1995) found that by the fifth grade the dif-
ferent components of task value postulated by Eccles et al. (1983) can
be empirically identified. Second, as mentioned earlier, students' ability
beliefs and expectancies for success predict their achievement in certain
subject areas, such as math. However, students' subjective task values pre-
dict both their intentions and actual decisions to keep taking courses in
mathematics (Eccles et al., 1983; Meece et al., 1990). Thus to remain en-
gaged in math, students must have a sense of a task's interest, impor-
tance, or utility value.
Academic and Social Motivation 1S9

Achievement Goal Orientation

Achievement goal orientations also concern the purposes children have

for achievement in different areas. Researchers have defined different
broad goal orientations toward achievement, with two orientations receiving
the most research attention (e.g., Ames, 1992; Dweck and Leggett, 1988;
Nicholls, 1979b; Nicholls, Cheung, Lauer, and Patashnick, 1989). Learning
or task mastery goals refer to an orientation to master or accomplish an
activity. Performance or ego goals refer to the desire to demonstrate one's
own ability, and outperform others. These goal orientations have important
consequences for motivation. When students focus on outperforming oth-
ers, they are more likely to choose to do tasks and activities they know
they can do. In contrast, children focusing on mastery choose challenging
tasks and are more concerned with their own progress than with outper-
forming others.
Researchers studying children's goal orientations argue further that
children who have mastery goal orientations will be more likely to maintain
positive motivation in school (see Ames, 1992). Mastery-type goals relate
to the use of deeper processing strategies (elaboration) and metacognitive,
self-regulatory strategies, such as planning, comprehension monitoring, and
so on (Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990). These relations have been found in
different academic and subject areas, and in both correlational and labo-
ratory type studies.
Recently, researchers have broadened their consideration of goal ori-
entations in different ways. There is increasing acknowledgment that stu-
dents have more than two goal orientations. For instance, Nicholls et al.
(1989) defined work avoidant goal orientation as the attempt to avoid doing
academic tasks. There also appear to be different kinds of performance
goals (see Elliot and Harackiewicz, 1997). Thus, researchers studying goal
orientations increasingly acknowledge that students' goal orientations are
more complex and multifaceted than initially proposed.
It also is important to consider differences between individuals' sub-
jective task values and their achievement goal orientations, because both
constructs deal with the purposes individuals have for doing different ac-
tivities. In our view, the major distinction is the level of specificity of the
constructs. Subjective task values refer more to purposes for doing different
tasks, and so they are quite specific and therefore may change greatly as
individuals encounter different tasks. By contrast, achievement goal orien-
tations are broader approaches to achievement, and so will not change as
much across the different tasks individuals choose to do. Indeed, Duda and
Nicholls (1992) found that individuals have similar goal orientations in the
very different domains of academics and sports.
160 Wentzel and Wigfield

In sum, researchers studying academic motivation find that students'

competence-related beliefs, values, and goals predict their school perform-
ance, effort exerted, and persistence at different academic tasks. We turn
next to a consideration of social motivation and its relation to academic
performance.

SOCIAL MOTIVATION

For the most part, social motivation has been studied in terms of psy-
chological processes that motivate social behavior and socialization expe-
riences that motivate social as well as academic behavior (see Juvonen and
Wentzel, 1996). In the following section, the specific role of social-motiva-
tional processes in influencing academic motivation and subsequent aca-
demic performance is discussed. We consider school socialization
experiences later.

Social-Motivational Processes

The psychological processes discussed in the previous sections that mo-

tivate academic performance are also relevant for understanding social mo-
tivation and subsequent social competence. For instance, goals to achieve
social relationship outcomes have been related to social-behavioral effec-
tiveness, orientations toward others, and peer acceptance. Goals to behave
in socially appropriate ways have been related positively to social accep-
tance by classmates and teachers as well as to displays of socially appro-
priate behavior. Attributional styles and control beliefs have been related
to a range of social outcomes, including aggression, peer rejection, and help
giving. Finally, beliefs about social competence and efficacy also have been
related to a range of social outcomes, including helping, control of aggres-
sion, peer acceptance, and social assertiveness (see Wentzel, 1997, for a
review of this literature).
Of interest for the present discussion is not that separate domains of
academic and social motivation exist, but that social and academic moti-
vational processes interact and often compete for students' psychological
resources. In this section, ways in which social and academic motivational
processes might interact to influence academic success are discussed, using
students' goals as a case in point.
In the domains of social and personality development, goals are de-
fined most often with respect to content, that is, as a cognitive repre-
sentation of what it is that an individual is trying to achieve in a given
Academic and Social Motivation 161

situation (Austin and Vancouver, 1996; Dodge, Asher, and Parkhurst, 1989;
Ford, 1992, 1996; Pervin, 1983). This focus on goal content, or on what
students are trying to achieve at school, encompasses the entire range of
possible student objectives, in contrast to academic goal orientations that
focus specifically on why students are trying to achieve academically.
Two important assumptions derived from a goal content perspective
are that individuals are likely to pursue more than one goal in a particular
situation, and that goals can emanate either from the individual or from
the context (see e.g., Austin and Vancouver, 1996). Therefore, although
used infrequently to study motivation at school, a focus on the content of
students' classroom goals is valuable in at least two respects. First, this defi-
nition draws attention to the multiple goals that students try to achieve at
school and the fact that among these goals are often powerful social con-
cerns. For instance, the pursuit of goals to establish and maintain social
relationships appears to be an important school-related activity for adoles-
cents (Allen, 1986; Ford, 1982). High-school students also have reported
trying to achieve social goals to have fun, and to be dependable and re-
sponsible, as well as academic goals to learn new things and to get good
grades (Wentzel, 1989). When the issue of goal priorities has been explored
in young adolescents, pursuit of goals to behave in socially appropriate ways
tends to be more frequent than pursuit of either learning-related goals or
goals to socialize with peers (Wentzel, 1991b, 1992).
Second, academic motivation and achievement represent socially de-
rived constructs that cannot be studied in isolation of culture and context
(Eccles, 1993; Maehr, 1984; Sivan, 1986). It follows that being successful
at school will be dependent on the pursuit of goals that extend beyond a
students' idiosyncratic interests to include those that reflect the interests
and concerns of other individuals (e.g., teachers) or groups (e.g., a class
or cooperative learning group). Students' goals will most likely contribute
to their academic achievements to the extent that they match the motiva-
tional and behavioral objectives of the classroom. In fact, successful stu-
dents do tend to pursue goals that are valued by others, including social
as well as academic goals (Hanson and Ginsburg, 1988; Wentzel, 1989).
Intersections Between Social and Academic Goals. What is the motiva-
tional significance of social goal pursuit for understanding academic out-
comes? One possibility is that the number and types of social and academic
goals that students choose to pursue, and how they coordinate their efforts
to achieve them, can have a profound effect on their overall motivation to
achieve academically. In support of this notion is research on academic
performance and the sets of social and academic goals that students try to
achieve in school. For instance, Wentzel (1989) demonstrated that high
achieving high school students reported frequent pursuit of academic goals
162 Wentzel and Wigfield

(i.e., to learn new things, to understand things), although less frequent pur-
suit of these goals did not distinguish the lowest achieving from average
achieving students. However, an unwillingness to try to conform to the so-
cial and normative standards of the classroom uniquely characterized the
lowest achieving students. The low achieving students also reported fre-
quent pursuit of other types of social goals such as to have fun and to
make and keep friendships. Results of a second study of middle school
students were similar in that social and academic goal pursuit differed as
a function of students' levels of academic achievement (Wentzel, 1993).
Findings indicated that 59% of the high-achieving students reported fre-
quent efforts to achieve both social and academic goals, whereas only 38%
of the average achievers and 34% of the low-achieving students reported
similar levels of effort to achieve these goals.
The results of these studies indicate that academic performance can
be explained, in part, by the sets of goals that students pursue. Moreover,
social and academic goals appear to be related to each other in an inte-
grated fashion. The challenge remains, however, to identify precise ways
in which motivation to achieve social goals can influence academic moti-
vation and accomplishments. Two possibilities will be considered: social and
academic goals are linked hierarchically, and social and academic goals are
part of a network of complementary goals.
One way that students might coordinate social and academic goals is
to organize them in hierarchical fashion. In this case, social and academic
goals become related causally, the direction of influence being determined
by students' beliefs about why things happen at school (see Austin and
Vancouver, 1996; Pervin, 1983; Skinner, Chapman, and Baltes, 1988). With
respect to relations between social and academic goals, the concept of goal
hierarchies is particularly helpful for understanding ways in which pursuit
of multiple goals might have both a positive as well as negative impact on
efforts to achieve academically. For instance, social goals to please one's
parents might result in pursuit of goals to do well academically. This par-
ticular goal hierarchy would most likely facilitate academic accomplish-
ments, especially if students have the requisite skills to excel intellectually.
Social-academic goal hierarchies, however, do not always insure positive
academic outcomes. Although studies of goal content indicate that pursuit
of goals to behave in prosocial ways and to do what one is supposed to
do related positively to academic outcomes (Wentzel, 1991a, 1993), other
studies indicate that when these social goals are linked hierarchically to
academic goals, the results are not always positive (Wentzel, 1993).
Findings from a recent study of young adolescents (Wentzel, 1993) il-
lustrate this point. In this research, it was suggested to students that they
can try to get good grades in school for many reasons. They were then
Academic and Social Motivation 163

asked to complete the following statement: "When you try to get good
grades in school, it's mostly because . . .." Students could answer with one
of three choices: "that's what you're supposed to do at school" (social re-
sponsibility goal); "you like to show how smart you can be" (evaluation
goal); or "learning is fun and exciting" (mastery goal). Note, therefore, that
pursuit of a valued social goal (to behave responsibly) was assessed as part
of a goal hierarchy in which efforts to earn classroom grades is linked caus-
ally to efforts to behave responsibly.
Based on their responses, students were assigned scores reflecting
either a social responsibility, evaluation, or mastery goal hierarchy. Most
students reported trying to get good grades because "that's what you're
supposed to do" (social responsibility hierarchy). Moreover, academic per-
formance differed significantly as a function of goal hierarchies, with stu-
dents who reported a mastery goal hierarchy earning significantly higher
grades and standardized test scores than students who believed getting
good grades resulted in the achievement of either evaluation or social re-
sponsibility goals. Results were robust over time, with goal hierarchies as-
sessed in 6th grade predicting GPAs and test scores in 7th grade.
These latter findings are especially intriguing in their suggestion that,
in contrast to goal pursuit in and of itself, hierarchical belief systems that
link academic success to other non-intellectual goals might play an impor-
tant role in sustaining (or undermining) levels of student performance over
time. From an attributional perspective, students who try to get good grades
because "that is what you're supposed to do," might view the achievement
of academic success as an act of compliance. If so, it is likely that these
students will not be intrinsically motivated to achieve and over time will
stop trying to do so (see Lepper and Hodell, 1989). Additionally, students
who try to excel academically because they wish to be socially responsible
might be at risk for less than optimal performance if their academic
achievements do not eventually lead to the social outcomes they seek.
A second way that students might coordinate social and academic goals
is to organize them in complementary fashion. In this case, having multiple
reasons for trying to achieve academically (reasons that are not necessarily
related in causal fashion) might also be adaptive for motivating academic
achievement. For instance, when a learning activity is less than stimulating
or interesting to students, reasons other than "learning because it's inter-
esting" might be needed to motivate performance. In such cases, multiple
social as well as task-related reasons for achieving, such as wanting to learn
because "it's what I'm supposed to do," "it will get me a job some day,"
"it will please mom and dad," or "it will impress my friends" can provide
a powerful motivational foundation for promoting continued engagement,
if not interest. However, it is possible that pursuing a number of goals might
164 Wentzel and Wigfield

have a negative effect on academic outcomes. Indeed, attempts to achieve

competing goals (such as goals to have fun with friends and goals to com-
plete homework assignments) or to achieve too many goals can make the
pursuit of multiple goals detrimental to classroom learning. Students who
are unable to coordinate the pursuit of their goals into an organized system
of behavior may become distracted or overwhelmed when facing particu-
larly demanding aspects of tasks that require focused concentration and
attention.
Thus far, we have considered social motivation, and the interaction of
social and academic motivation, as intrapersonal phenomena. However, stu-
dents' motivation also is influenced greatly by the kinds of contextual and
interpersonal experiences they encounter at school. We consider these con-
textual and socialization influences in the next section.

Socialization Influences on Student Motivation

A growing literature has documented ways in which socialization ex-

periences and social encounters in school are related to student motivation.
As we discuss more completely below, with respect to academic outcomes,
students' perceptions of academic self-efficacy and competence appear to
be based in part, on what they learn by watching and interacting with teach-
ers and peers (Butler, 1993; Schunk, Hanson, and Cox, 1987). Teachers'
reactions to student success and failure, and other forms of performance
feedback, have been related to students' academic goal orientations, per-
ceptions of efficacy, and expenditures of effort (Ames, 1984; Skinner and
Belmont, 1993). Direct communication of educational goals, values, and
expectations on the part of adults and peers also can influence the educa-
tional goals, values, and expectations of students (Eccles, 1993; Juvonen,
1996; Weinstein, 1989).
Researchers also have focused on how different learning contexts and
types of instruction influence students' motivation. Research on classroom
reward structures (Ames, 1984; deCharms, 1984), school organizational cul-
ture and climate (Maehr and Midgley, 1996), and person-environment fit
(Eccles and Midgley, 1989) has greatly expanded our understanding of how
the social environments within which learning takes place can motivate chil-
dren to learn and behave in very specific ways. In the following discussion,
we focus on two specific ways that teachers might motivate student learning
and performance, through their instructional practices and their interper-
sonal relationships with students.
Academic and Social Motivation 165

Instructional Practice and Student Motivation

Some researchers have studied how different teaching practices and

classroom organizational characteristics taken together influence students'
motivation. Rosenholtz and Simpson (1984) suggested a cluster of teaching
practices (e.g., individualized vs. whole group instruction, ability grouping
practices; and publicness of feedback) that should affect motivation because
they make ability differences in classrooms especially salient to the students.
They assumed that these practices affect the motivation of all students by
increasing the salience of extrinsic motivators and ego-focused learning
goals, leading to greater incidence of social comparison behaviors. These
practices also can lead students to focus more on their perceived compe-
tence, and may lead to an increased perception of ability as an entity state
rather than an incremental condition. All of these changes should reduce
the quality of the children's academic motivation and learning. The mag-
nitude of the negative consequences of these shifts, however, should be
greater for low-performing children because as they become more aware
of their relatively low standing, they are likely to adopt a variety of ego-
protective strategies that undermine learning and mastery (Covington,
1992).
Evaluation practices are also likely to influence students' competence-
related beliefs, subjective values, and goals. For instance, how teachers re-
port on and recognize performance will affect the degree to which
ability-related information is accessible, comparable, and salient (Rosen-
holtz and Rosenholtz, 1981). Public methods for charting progress, such as
wall posters detailing amount or level of work completed provide readily
accessible information. In addition, teachers who frequently contrast stu-
dents' performances, grant privileges to "smart" children, or award prizes
for "best" performance may increase the importance of ability as a factor
in classroom life and heighten the negative affect associated with failure
(see Ames, 1992). When there are few clear winners and many losers, rela-
tive performance will be more salient to children (Nicholls, 1979). In con-
trast, in more cooperative or mastery-oriented classrooms, everyone who
performs adequately can experience success. As a result, youngsters in mas-
tery-oriented rooms are more likely to focus on self improvement than so-
cial comparison, to perceive themselves as able, and to have high
expectation for success (Nicholls, 1984). In general, these findings can be
interpreted as showing that mastery evaluation practices are better at fos-
tering and maintaining motivation than social normative, competitive evalu-
ation practices (see also Maehr and Midgley, 1996).
Building on this work, Ames (1992) discussed several aspects of class-
room structure that can influence in particular one of the academic moti-
166 Wentzel and Wigfield

vation constructs we are considering, students' achievement goal orienta-

tions (see Blumenfeld, 1992, for an expansion and critique of some of
Ames' ideas). These aspects include: classroom tasks, authority structure,
recognition, grouping, evaluation, and time. Ames used the acronym TAR-
GET to describe them. Each of these aspects can influence whether stu-
dents develop a more task-involved or a more ego-oriented goal
orientation. In describing these influences, we focus on practices which fa-
cilitate a task-involved goal orientation (or mastery goal orientation, to use
Ames' term), and competence-related beliefs. For instance, tasks which are
diverse, interesting, and challenging foster students' task-involved goals, as
do tasks students think they have a reasonable chance to complete. When
the authority in classrooms is structured such that students have opportu-
nities to participate in decision-making and to take responsibility for their
own learning, they are more task-involved. Recognition of student effort
instead of only recognizing their ability, and giving all students (rather than
just the "best" students) a chance to achieve recognition fosters task in-
volved goals. Further, such recognition practices make comparative ability
assessments less relevant; students instead focus more on their own efforts
and on improving their skills.
Another way to foster task-involved goals is using cooperative grouping,
and providing students with opportunities to work with a heterogeneous
mix of students. When teachers evaluate students' progress and mastery
rather than just their outcomes, and when they provide students opportu-
nities to improve, then task-involvement is more likely. As well, evaluations
of progress mean that all students have a chance to succeed, and so stu-
dents' competence becomes perhaps less important than their efforts. Fi-
nally, time refers to how instruction is paced. Crucial factors for fostering
task involvement appear to be varying the amounts of time available for
different students to complete their work, and helping students learn to
plan their own work schedule and organize how they progress through the
work. Ames (1992) argued cogently that such practices allow more students
to maintain mastery goal orientations and positive competence beliefs, and
therefore to be more positively motivated in classrooms.
Findings from a variety of studies support the links Ames proposed
(see reviews by Ames, 1992; Anderman and Maehr, 1994; Blumenfeld,
1992; Stipek, 1996). Researchers have developed integrated instructional
programs that incorporate these and other principles for fostering students'
motivation in classrooms. For instance, Guthrie et al.'s (1996) concept-ori-
ented reading instruction program attempts to enhance students' motiva-
tion and performance in reading by emphasizing task mastery goals for
reading, social interactions with other students, and involvement in inter-
esting and authentic tasks. Guthrie and Alao (1997) discussed a set of prin-
Academic and Social Motivation 167

ciples that can be used to design integrated classroom instructional pro-

grams that facilitate students' motivation and performance (see also
Guthrie et al., 1998).
However, although the associations of different instructional practices
with students' motivation are beginning to be understood, much more work
is needed to understand fully how various instructional strategies interact
with each other in a single context like the classroom to affect motivation
and performance (Ames, 1992; Blumenfeld, 1992; Guthrie and Alao, 1997).
Most teachers in American schools use a mix of mastery-oriented and per-
formance-oriented strategies. For example, they may use mastery-oriented
tasks and allow the students appropriate levels of autonomy but still rely
primarily on social comparative evaluation strategies, and children often
engage in social comparison and competition even in master-oriented class-
rooms. Researchers know little about the best combination of these features
to support a mastery-oriented motivational orientation. Nor do they know
when, and if, the collection of motivational dimensions actually cluster to-
gether within the individual. More work is needed to determine how these
motivational components interrelate with each other and with other moti-
vational constructs to influence engagement.
Moreover, the assumed direction of causality in this work primarily
has been from teacher to student. That is, teachers design and implement
the instructional programs believed to enhance motivation and perform-
ance. However, students' own beliefs about effective instructional and mo-
tivational strategies also need to be considered (Nolen and Nicholls, 1993;
Thorkildsen, Nolen, and Fournier, 1994). These researchers have found
that students and teachers sometimes have different ideas about practices
which facilitate student motivation; therefore it is critical to include stu-
dents' ideas in these programs.

Interpersonal Relationships and Student Motivation

In addition to instructional characteristics and classroom climate, in-

terpersonal relationships also represent contexts that can lead to engage-
ment with or alienation from classroom activities (see Juvonen and
Wentzel, 1996). In particular, interpersonal relationships with teachers
might promote academic success and school adjustment because they con-
tribute to the development of social motivational processes and to their
expression in classroom contexts.
How might social relationships contribute to student motivation and
engagement? Recent theoretical work (e.g., Connell and Wellborn, 1991;
Ford, 1992) suggests a sense of social relatedness contributes to the adop-
168 Wentzel and Wigfield

tion of goals promoted by social groups or institutions, whereas a lack of

relatedness or disaffection can lead to a rejection of such goals. In other
words, students who pursue social goals that promote group cohesion and
positive interpersonal interactions (such as to be prosocial and responsible),
will most likely be those students who also feel as if they are an integral
part of the social group.
In support of this notion are recent findings indicating that middle
school students' pursuit of goals to help and cooperate and to follow class-
room rules and norms is related to student perceptions that teachers are
supportive and care about them (Wentzel, 1994, 1995). Of additional in-
terest is that students describe these supportive and caring teachers as con-
sistent rule setters, having high but realistic standards for performance,
demonstrating equitable and fair treatment to all students, and showing
concern for students' general well-being (Wentzel, 1997). Moreover, these
teacher characteristics are related positively to students' reports of frequent
prosocial and social responsibility goal pursuits, interest in class, mastery
goal orientations, and frequent displays of positive classroom behavior
(Wentzel, 1995).
Evidence for the motivational significance of supportive and caring
teachers can also be found in studies linking teacher characteristics to aca-
demic aspects of motivation. For instance, Skinner and Belmont (1993) re-
port significant relations between teacher provisions of structure and
guidance with elementary school-aged students' engagement in classroom
activities. Democratic, autonomy-granting teaching styles also have been re-
lated to aspects of academic motivation (e.g., Boggiano and Katz, 1991;
Grolnick and Ryan, 1987; Ryan and Grolnick, 1987).
Additional work on socialization experiences and academic outcomes
has focused on students' perceptions of interpersonal relationships and how
these perceptions might motivate and guide subsequent behavior. With re-
spect to teachers, Wentzel (1996b) reports significant links between middle
school students' assessments of teacher behavior reflecting dimensions of
caring and positive aspects of student motivation, including pursuit of social
and academic goals, mastery orientations toward learning, and academic
interest. Along these lines, Eccles and her colleagues (Feldlaufer, Midgley,
and Eccles, 1988; Midgley, Feldlaufer, and Eccles, 1989) also have found
that young adolescents report declines in the nurturant qualities of teacher-
student relationships after the transition to middle school; these declines
correspond to declines in academic motivation and achievement. At a more
general level, perceived support from teachers has been related to positive
motivational outcomes, including the pursuit of goals to learn and to be-
have prosocially and responsibly, educational aspirations and values, and
Academic and Social Motivation 169

self concept (Felner et al., 1985; Goodenow, 1993; Harter, 1996; Mar-
joribanks, 1985; Midgley et al., 1989; Wentzel, 1994).

CONCLUSIONS

Students' motivation is crucial to their school success. Students who

persist, who choose to continue to focus on academic activities, and who
display socially appropriate classroom behavior are more likely to succeed
in school. We have discussed many of the important psychological processes
that mediate students' persistence, choice, and classroom behavior. These
include students' competence-related beliefs, control beliefs, achievement
values, achievement goal orientations, and social and academic goals. We
also discussed the important influences that instructional practices in
schools and students' relations with teachers and peers have on their aca-
demic and social motivation. For the most part, researchers have consid-
ered academic and social aspects of motivation as separate things. The
major premise of our paper is that students' overall motivation clearly re-
flects both social and academic concerns, and that a more complete un-
derstanding of classroom motivation will be attained when we learn more
precisely how both aspects of motivation relate to one another and to vari-
ous aspects of academic performance. We discussed a number of ways in
which social and academic motivation interact to influence students' per-
formance. We close by highlighting some crucial issues that need to be
addressed in this area.
Perhaps the most immediate challenge is to refine further theoretical
constructs in both the social and academic motivation areas so that we can
reach common understanding of terms and draw clear comparisons of re-
sults across studies. For instance, theoretical and operational definitions of
goals differ dramatically across social and academic domains of motiva-
tional research. Unless similar definitions are adopted to study social and
academic goals, our understanding of goal coordination and integration will
not advance. Similarly, research on competence-related beliefs and control
beliefs could benefit from more precise definition of terms. In one impor-
tant step in this direction, Pajares (1996) considered the different defini-
tions of self-efficacy, competence beliefs, and expectancies for success that
have appeared in the literature. Such conceptual and definitional clarity
facilitate interpretation of the results of different studies using these con-
structs, and move the field ahead.
In this regard, two important methodological issues are worth noting.
Although it makes intuitive as well as theoretical sense to consider social
and academic domains as distinct, empirical evidence to support this con-
170 Wentzel and Wigfield

elusion has not yet been generated by the field. Issues of construct validity
have been explored with respect to intelligence, with studies generally sup-
porting a conclusion that social and academic intelligence represent sepa-
rate domains of intellectual functioning (Ford and Tisak, 1983; Marlowe,
1986). Similar work must begin in the area of motivation if advances in
the understanding of links between social and academic motivation are to
continue.
Second, even if academic and social domains generally are distinct,
motivation constructs within each domain may vary in their generality or
specificity. As mentioned earlier, Duda and Nicholls (1992) found that stu-
dents' goal orientations in academic and sports were relatively similar and
general; students with ego goals in one domain also were ego-oriented in
the other. By contrast, students' competence and efficacy beliefs seem quite
domain-specific (see Bandura, 1997; Eccles et al., in press; Pajares, 1996).
Wigfield (1997) provides a more detailed discussion of this issue.
Another issue is how individuals coordinate goals across multiple do-
mains, especially when one considers the potentially negative motivational
effects of competing, incongruent goals across family, peer, and classroom
contexts often experienced by minority children (Phelan, Davidson, and
Cao, 1991). Children from minority cultures often are expected to adapt
to normative expectations for behavior that are inconsistent with those es-
poused by their families and communities. For instance, Ogbu (1985) de-
scribes how failing to achieve academically can be interpreted by some
minority children as an accomplishment rather than a failure. In such cases,
noncompliance with the majority culture's institutional norms and standards
for achievement can lead to acceptance within the minority community but
social rejection and academic failure at school. Ways for students to nego-
tiate and accommodate these powerful, conflicting social influences suc-
cessfully are not easily found but also deserve our undivided attention.
Researchers need to explore further how different classroom and in-
terpersonal contexts influence students' academic and social motivation. As
we have discussed, these contexts can impede as well as facilitate motiva-
tion. The complex but important interplay of students' motivation in dif-
ferent social settings and contexts clearly deserves closer attention. This
kind of work poses important challenges to researchers. Different ap-
proaches can be taken in this area. Ethnographic studies can provide rich
descriptions of classroom environments and their effects on students (e.g.,
Oldfather and McLaughlin, 1993). Quantitative approaches relying on hi-
erarchical linear modeling (HLM) also can contribute important informa-
tion. In such studies, both student-level and classroom-level effects can be
examined (see Bryk and Raudenbush, 1992). For instance, Anderman and
Young (1994) found—using HLM—that there were individual differences
Academic and Social Motivation 171

in students' mastery vs. performance goal orientations in science. They fur-

ther showed that when teachers used performance-oriented instructional
techniques students had lower mastery goal orientations in science.
Finally, although classroom-level processes are crucial, it is becoming
increasingly clear that practices at the school level, such as the school goal
climate, also have important influences on students' motivation (see An-
derman and Maehr, 1994; Maehr and Anderman, 1993; Maehr and
Midgley, 1996). These investigators suggest that school-level policies and
practices (such as ability tracking, comparative performance evaluations,
retention, and ego instead of mastery goal focus) undermine the motivation
of both teachers and students through their impact on the goals these in-
dividuals bring to the learning environment. Even if individual teachers
adopt instructional programs that facilitate motivation, the effects of these
programs may be undermined if the school goal climate works against them.

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