ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 outlined ways in which theory and research on motivation evolved from depicting people as buffeted by needs and drives to depicting them as proactively setting goals and planning strategies for accomplishing
them. Chapter 3 described how work on achievement motivation became diversified, ultimately producing several families of theory and research that focused on different aspects of the larger topic, most notably work by Dweck and others on implicit theories of ability, by Weiner and others on causal attributions for success and failure, and by Bandura and others on self-efficacy perceptions in achievement situations. As this differentiation occurred, there were several ways in which the work broadened or shifted in addition to the shift from an emphasis on needs to an emphasis on goals. These included: broadening from relatively artificial experimental situations to include study of motivation in naturally occurring achievement situations, including classrooms; broadening from study of global motivational traits to study of situation-specific states, including study of ways in which motivation might be affected by characteristics of learning situations; shifts from focus on the quantitative aspects of motivation to focus on its qualitative aspects (e.g., from the strength of achievement needs to the nature of achievement goals); and broadening from an intrapersonal to an interpersonal purview, reflecting recognition that individuals’ motivational patterns are affected by their interactions with others, especially peers in ongoing social groups.
