ABSTRACT
Motivational factors can have pronounced and far-reaching effects on children's learning and performance. They determine such critical things as whether children seek or avoid challenges and whether they persist in the face of obstacles—in short, whether children actually pursue and master the skills they value and are capable of mastering. This chapter examines beliefs about intelligence that are unrelated to measures of intelligence but that appear to promote or interfere with learning. It focuses on children's theories of intelligence and on how the different theories may dictate children's choice of achievement goals and may determine their success in reaching those goals. The chapter describes the past research on the patterns of cognition, affect, and behavior that appear to facilitate or impair performance in achievement situations. It then describes a series of recent studies that provides evidence that children's beliefs about the nature of intelligence do in fact predict the goals they choose to pursue and the achievement patterns they display.
