The Interplay Inter play Between Achievement Goals and Perceptions of Ability

According to achievement goal theory, from a motivational, affective, and learning standpoint, pupils in physical education should be in a state of predominant task involvement in this state, a person's criteria for determining his or her mastery and success are mainly personally controllable. How may success then become more personally controllable? Perceived ability in a normative or social-comparison sense becomes irrelevant when in a state of task involvement. Pupils holding a task¬ oriented achievement goal focus on mastering learning activities, progressing, and doing the activities, not on being better than others. In contrast, predominantly high ego/performance-oriented pupils are generally in much more difficult and less personally controllable situations. They continually need to demonstrate; ability and maintain the high perceptions of competence when ability is judged by comparisons. When they do accomplish this, however these students feel positive affect, have positive adaptive cognitions, and sustain motivational behaviors. Consequently, pupils with predominantly ego-oriented achievement goals may still engage in adaptive achievement behaviors and derive positive motivational and affective outcomes out of P.E. participation. This will occur as long as they perceive themselves as high in ability. By contrast, ego-involved pupils who doubt their abilities seem far more vulnerable to developing maladaptive achievement behaviors and experiencing negative motivational and affective outcomes. Remember that few pupils are capable of consistently being better than their classmates. Many reasons could cause a-performance to end up worse than those of other classmates in P.E. These-reasons include injury, having a bad "day, and reasons that often are beyond pupils' personal control. Accordingly, many pupils who hold a predominantly ego-oriented achievement goal run the risk of developing low perceived competence in a normative sense.
Pupils who hold a task-oriented achievement goal make use of an undifferentiated conception of ability; whereas those -in a predominant state of ego involvement utilize a differentiated conception of ability. Embedded in pupils' cognitive development are different developmental stages towards the attainment of a mature and differentiated conception of ability. Thus, in terms of motivational and affective outcomes, the interlay between different achievement goals and perceived ability becomes particularly important when pupils have reached the developmental stage of a mature and differentiated conception of ability. Such developmental stages are considered next.