Achievement Goal Orientations And Self-Regulation In Writing An Integrative Perspective

Achievement Goal Orientations and Self-Regulation in Writing:
An Integrative Perspective
Avi Kaplan
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Einat Lichtinger
Oranim Academic College
Malka Gorodetsky
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
This study tested the hypothesis that self-regulation of writing is a multifaceted modular construct and
that students would perceive different goal orientations for writing as involving the application of
different writing strategies. Two hundred eleven Jewish Israeli high school students engaged in a writing
assignment and then reported on their goal orientations, self-regulation, and writing strategies. Smallest
space analyses indicated that self-regulation and writing strategies were perceived as elements within
goal orientations, thus suggesting a phenomenological integration of motivation and self-regulation of
writing into task-related action orientations. The findings pointed to possible differences in the nature of
these action orientations between students from different types of learning environments and with
different levels of writing achievement.
Keywords: motivation, achievement goals, self-regulation, writing
In the past two decades, a growing body of literature has focused
on understanding, assessing, and promoting self-regulated learning
in educational settings (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1998; Zimmerman
& Schunk, 2001). Arguably, most conceptualizations of self-
regulated learning view it as an individual-differences construct: a
set of cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral strat-
egies that students, who have the strategic knowledge, use during
engagement. Research has also emphasized the important role of
students’ motivation in instigating and maintaining self-regulated
learning (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2001). Most empirical investi-
gations have treated motivational constructs and self-regulated
learning strategies as related but distinct theoretical entities and
have hypothesized that higher motivation would lead to greater use
of self-regulated learning.
The current study proposes an alternative, complementary, per-
spective on the relations between motivation and self-regulated
learning. We suggest that rather than being viewed as distinct
entities, motivation and self-regulation strategies may be con-
ceived of as integrated in the contextualized meaning that students
construct for engagement in academic tasks. More specifically, we
suggest that self-regulated learning is not a unitary set of strategies
but is composed of different strategies, each of which may fit
better the pursuit of different goals. Therefore, different motiva-
tional orientations for engagement would call for use of different
strategies. Moreover, we contend that the perceived fit between
specific strategies and certain motivational orientations may de-
pend on the affordances in the educational context that are affected
by the types of tasks administered and by teachers’ instructional
practices. Thus, this perspective suggests that simply enhancing
motivation for the task may not be enough to facilitate students’
adaptive use of self-regulated learning. Rather, attention should
also be given to the motivational orientations that students adopt in
each educational context as well as to the different learning strat-
egies that students in that context perceive as relevant for engaging
in the task when adopting different motivational orientations.
The current study is a first step in a program of research that
focuses on the relations of different motivational orientations for
engagement—students’ achievement goal orientations (Ames,
1992)—and different specific learning strategies within different
educational contexts. The aim of this study is to support the notion
that motivational orientations and strategies may be integrated in
contextual motivation–strategy orientations. The present study fo-
cuses on the subject matter of high school academic writing.
Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning
Self-regulated learning is the “active, constructive process
whereby learners set goals for their learning and then attempt to
monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and
behavior, guided and constrained by their goals and the contextual
features in the environment” (Pintrich, 2000a, p. 453). Research in
the past years has focused on identifying general and domain-
specific components of self-regulation, including cognitive, meta-
cognitive, motivational, and behavioral strategies, by which stu-
dents can actively and strategically control and modify their
learning to achieve desired academic outcomes (Butler & Winne,
1995; Zimmerman, 1989).
Avi Kaplan and Malka Gorodetsky, Department of Education, Ben-
Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel; Einat Lichtinger,
Department of Special Education, Oranim Academic College, Tivon,
Israel.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Avi
Kaplan, Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev,
Beer Sheva 84105, Israel, or to Einat Lichtinger, Oranim Academic Col-
lege, Tivon 36006, Israel. E-mail: akaplan@bgu.ac.il or licht@012.net.il
Journal of Educational Psychology © 2009 American Psychological Association
2009, Vol. 101, No. 1, 51–69 0022-0663/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0013200
51

An important assumption in most models of self-regulation is
that students’ motivation plays a crucial role in their adaptive
engagement in the various phases of self-regulated learning. Zim-
merman (2000) argued that “self-regulatory skills are of little value
if a person cannot motivate themselves to use them” (p. 17).
Students’ motivational beliefs, such as their self-efficacy for the
task and for the use of self-regulation strategies or their valuing of
the task for its own sake, are crucial for their actual and successful
engagement in self-regulated learning (Zimmerman, 2002).
One of the fruitful directions of research on motivation and
self-regulated learning has been in achievement goal theory (Pin-
trich, 2000a). Unlike the outcome goals that students set when
planning their engagement, achievement goal theory focuses on
the broader purposes or orientations that students adopt for en-
gagement in the task (Anderman & Maehr, 1994; Kaplan &
Maehr, 2007). Traditionally, two such orientations have been
defined: mastery goals orientation and performance goals orienta-
tion (Ames, 1992). Mastery goals refer to a purpose of increasing
competence and thus to a concern with learning, understanding,
and mastering the task. Performance goals refer to a purpose of
demonstrating ability and thus to a concern with appearing smart
and able and not appearing unable. Researchers also make a
distinction between approach and avoidance orientations within
mastery and performance goals, with approach orientations refer-
ring to a focus on the possibility of success and avoidance orien-
tations to a focus on the possibility of failure (Elliot, 1999). Thus,
mastery–approach goals refer to engagement with the orientation
toward increasing competence, whereas mastery–avoidance goals
refer to engagement with the orientation toward avoiding deterio-
ration of competence or of missing opportunities for learning.
Performance–approach goals refer to engagement with the orien-
tation toward demonstration of high ability, whereas performance–
avoidance goals refer to engagement with the orientation to avoid
demonstration of low ability (Elliot, 1999; Pintrich, 2000a).
Research over the past couple of decades suggests that achieve-
ment goals are associated differently with the various components
of self-regulated learning. Findings strongly suggest that mastery–
approach goals are associated with initiation of self-regulation,
choice of deep learning strategies, high self-monitoring and control
of cognition during engagement, persistence in the face of diffi-
culty, interpretation of feedback in relation to progress, and self-
evaluation of comprehension (Pintrich, 2000a). Findings also sug-
gest strongly that performance–avoidance goals are negatively
associated with adaptive self-regulated learning and are associated
positively with avoidance of effort and with self-handicapping
strategies (Urdan & Midgley, 2001). Findings from research con-
cerning performance–approach goals are more complex. Several
studies suggest that performance–approach goals are positively
associated with adaptive self-regulation (e.g., Bouffard, Boisvert,
Vezeau, & Larouche, 1995; Pintrich, 2000b; Wolters, Yu, &
Pintrich, 1996). However, there are other studies that suggest that
this motivational orientation is unrelated to positive indicators of
self-regulation (e.g., Kaplan & Midgley, 1997) and some that
suggest that this motivational orientation is related to some unde-
sired cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes that provide
negative indicators of self-regulation (Middleton & Midgley,
1997; Miller, Behrens, Greene, & Newman, 1993). Research on
mastery–avoidance goals is still scarce, and no generalization can
be stated at this point about the association of this motivational
orientation with cognitive and motivational strategies (Pintrich,
2003).
In addition to research on students’ personal achievement goals,
some research has also investigated the relations between environ-
mental emphases on different achievement goals—environmental
goal structures—and aspects of self-regulated learning. Although
little of this research has focused specifically on self-regulation,
findings do suggest that students who perceive the teacher as
emphasizing mastery goals are more likely to use adaptive cogni-
tive, emotional, and behavioral regulatory strategies, such as pos-
itive coping, help seeking, and expenditure of effort, than are
students who perceive the teacher as emphasizing performance
goals (Ames & Archer, 1988; Kaplan & Midglely, 1999; Newman,
1998; Ryan, Gheen, & Midgley, 1998; Urdan & Midgley, 2003).
Integrating Motivational Orientations and
Self-Regulated Learning
Past research in achievement goal theory has led to some im-
portant generalizations concerning the association of different mo-
tivational orientations and level of self-regulated learning. How-
ever, similar to research that highlighted the positive relationship
between self-efficacy and self-regulated learning, most empirical
investigations viewed achievement goals and self-regulated learn-
ing as distinct entities that are related quantitatively—for example,
suggesting that higher mastery–approach goals would be associ-
ated with more self-regulation.
However, early conceptualizations of achievement goals sug-
gested a different perspective of motivation and action than a
linear quantitative relation. These early models viewed students’
actions as based in a comprehensive meaning that they constructed
for engagement (Ames, 1992; Maehr, 1984; Molden & Dweck,
2000; J. G. Nicholls, 1989). This meaning involved the purpose for
engagement as well as the actions that would promote the pursuit
of that purpose (Maehr, 1984). From this perspective, mastery and
performance goals orientations are not associated simply with
higher or lower levels of self-regulation but rather with different
types of self-regulation. Pintrich (2000a) suggested, for example,
that mastery–approach-oriented students, who focus on learning
and understanding, may set different objectives, monitor different
types of cues, and choose to use different learning strategies than
performance–approach-oriented students, who focus on appearing
able. More comprehensively, J. G. Nicholls (1989, 1992) contended
that students’ motivational orientations represent a lay theory about
what it means to succeed as well as how to achieve this success. For
example, students who believed that success in a task is defined by
deep understanding (i.e., mastery goals) also stated that success in
school can be achieved through strategies such as working hard,
cooperating with others, helping others, and trying to understand.
In contrast, students who believed that success in a task is defined
by demonstrating high ability (i.e., performance goals) also en-
dorsed strategies for success such as trying to do better than others,
impressing others, and behaving as if you like the teacher. Like
Pintrich, J. G. Nicholls (1989) argued that “students with different
motivational orientations collect different data and interpret them
differently” (p. 102). Similarly, Maehr (1984) argued that different
achievement goal orientations involve different action possibili-
ties: the strategies that the person perceives as available for him- or
52 KAPLAN, LICHTINGER, AND GORODETSKY

herself in the situation in light of his or her construction of the
purpose of engagement.
More recently, Kaplan and Maehr (2002) presented a dynamic
model of achievement goal orientations, in which goal orientations
are dynamically constructed in achievement situations through the
integration of three main components: the perceived purpose of
engagement in the situation, relevant self-perceptions (e.g., self-
efficacy for the task, aspects of identity), and the perceived action
possibilities for engagement. The integration of the three compo-
nents results in a situated action orientation that involves the
purpose for engagement and the actions to pursue that purpose.
Kaplan and Maehr’s model also emphasizes that all three of these
components are themselves constructed within a cultural milieu
and are affected by cultural meanings, including those of achieve-
ment, self, and engagement.
Several empirical studies have attempted to investigate the
integration of motivation and action. Ainley (1993), for example,
attempted to support the notion that “purpose and strategy are
intertwined in action” and that they represent an “inherent unity”
(p. 396). She used a person-centered approach and found that
students adopting different approaches to learning reported using
different combinations of transformational (i.e., deep processing)
and reproductive (i.e., superficial) learning strategies when prepar-
ing for exams. The profiles Ainley identified were composed of
students’ level of ability and three styles of engagement: deep
(similar to mastery goals), achievement (similar to performance–
approach goals), and surface (similar to work-avoidance goals). Her
findings were that students with profiles that included relatively
higher deep to surface approaches reported more transformational
than reproductive strategies, whereas students with profiles that in-
cluded relatively higher surface than deep and achievement ap-
proaches reported more reproductive than transformational strate-
gies. Ainley also found that type of strategy used was related to
students’ perceived ability in the subject matter. These findings
point to the association between approaches for engagement and
types of learning strategies used. However, the analytical tech-
nique used (multivariate analysis of variance [MANOVA] with
purpose as the independent variable and strategy as the dependent
variable) nevertheless treated motivational orientation and catego-
ries of strategies as distinct constructs.
Bråten and Samuelstuen (2004) focused on reading and used an
experimental design in which they assigned one of three purposes
for reading a social science text to high school students and then
asked the students to report on four general self-regulation and
learning strategies that they used when reading the text. The
findings suggested that when reading for the purpose of preparing
for a test, students reported more monitoring strategies and less
organization strategies than students who read for the purpose of
writing a summary or for discussing the material with peers.
Moreover, the association of different purposes for reading with
the use of certain regulation strategies was moderated by students’
prior knowledge of the topic. The findings clearly support a
relationship between different engagement purposes and the use of
different regulation strategies. Still, the methodology used falls
short of allowing the conclusion that purpose and strategies are
integrated in a comprehensive phenomenological meaning.
Using an interview methodology, Lorch, Lorch, and Klusewitz
(1993) found that college students pointed to different self-
regulatory strategies involved when reading for school and when
reading by personal choice (e.g., leisure). In comparison with
reading by personal choice, school reading was slower and in-
volved less visualization and more rereading, thinking, memoriza-
tion, monitoring of comprehension, critical analysis, relating con-
tent to previous knowledge, and use of supports. School reading
also involved experiencing less enjoyment, emotion, and interest.
The researchers also found distinctions between different purposes
within the category of school reading. For example, reading as part
of preparing for an exam was slower and involved more rereading,
attention to details, memorization, and testing of understanding
than reading for research or reading as part of preparing for class.
The interview methodology focused on students’ constructions of
different purposes for reading and the actions that are involved and
suggests that purpose and strategies may be indeed integrated in
students’ constructions of engagement.
Perhaps the most comprehensive program of research to date
supporting the phenomenological integration of motivation and
strategies is Alexander’s (1997, 2003, 2006) model of domain
learning. The model, which is based on decades of empirical work,
suggests that as students develop their competence in a domain,
they increasingly integrate their motivation for the domain (repre-
sented in the model by interest) with their knowledge and with
their engagement strategies. Less competent students, who are in
the acclimation stage, have less interest and knowledge in the
domain, engage with the purpose of acquiring and making con-
nections between rudimentary concepts, and use surface learning
strategies. Deeper learning strategies may be perceived by these
students as detached from their purposes for engagement. Students
with increased competence, who are in the competence stage, have
more interest in the domain and more comprehensive and struc-
tured knowledge. These students engage with the purpose of
solving problems in the domain, and they use a mix of surface and
deep strategies. As they progress within the competence stage,
these students integrate strategies in the domain into particular
types of problem solving. Among the competent students, who are
in the proficiency stage, there is a synergy between interest,
knowledge, and strategies. These students engage with the purpose
of learning as well as contributing to the knowledge in the domain,
and they use primarily deep learning strategies in ways that are
integrated with their engagement purposes.
The Role of Context
There seems to be support for the idea that when pursuing
different motivational orientations, students would perceive differ-
ent strategies as relevant for task engagement. However, the per-
ceived relevance of specific strategies for engagement with a
certain motivational orientation would also depend on character-
istics of the context (Nicholls, Cobb, Yackel, Wood, & Wheatley,
1989). Different instructional practices and types of tasks afford
the use of different strategies (Perry, Phillips, & Dowler, 2004).
Moreover, contextual values and norms may imbue the same
strategies with different meanings, thus affecting their perceived
relevance for engagement. Thus, contextual characteristics may
make certain strategies more or less relevant for students’ pursuit
of different purposes for engagement. Indeed, motivational orien-
tations that focus on developing competence (mastery goals) or
demonstrating competence (performance goals) may call for dif-
ferent strategies in different subject matters (e.g., art vs. math), in
53
MOTIVATION AND SELF-REGULATION

different types of tasks (e.g., worksheet vs. a personal project), in
different stages of learning a topic (e.g., acquiring concepts vs.
developing critical perspectives), in different cultures, and under
teaching methods with different philosophies (e.g., phonics vs.
whole language). Thus, it may be that in different educational
environments, students may construe different strategies as serving
the same purposes of engagement. This suggests that when at-
tempting to investigate and promote students’ use of specific
self-regulated learning strategies, attention needs to be given not
only to students’ motivational orientations but also to their per-
ceptions of the relevance of these strategies for engagement in the
particular context and task.
Clearly, the hypotheses that students integrate certain strategies
with motivational orientations and that the nature of these integra-
tions may vary in different educational contexts, calls for a more
differentiated, contextualized, and domain-specific approach to
motivational orientation and learning strategies. Such an investi-
gation requires specification of a repertoire of learning strategies
for a task in a particular domain and mapping of the strategies that
students perceived as available for different motivational orienta-
tions, in different educational environments, and among students
with different characteristics.
Self-Regulation of Writing
The present study explores the relations of achievement goal
orientations and learning strategies in a specific writing assign-
ment. Research suggests that capable writers regulate their actions
and use a variety of strategies (e.g., Page-Voth & Graham, 1999;
Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 1999). In addition to more general
metacognitive strategies, such as monitoring, organization, and
evaluation, and motivational strategies, such as regulating task
value and efficacy, academic writing requires the use of domain-
specific strategies, such as revising the text and being aware of and
catering to potential readers. In the past few years, research con-
cerned with identifying such strategies and investigating variables
associated with their use has increased (Bruning & Horn, 2000).
Nevertheless, research concerned with self-regulation in writing is
relatively scarce (Graham & Harris, 2000). The present study is
part of a larger project that aims to define writing-specific self-
regulation strategies, develop a self-report scale of these strategies,
and investigate relations between achievement goals and self-
regulation in writing.
Little research has investigated specifically the relations of
achievement goals and self-regulation of writing strategies. In one
of the few studies, Pajares, Britner, and Valiante (2000) found that
(a) mastery goals were associated with writing self-efficacy and
with self-efficacy for self-regulation of writing, (b) performance–
approach goals were associated with writing self-efficacy but not
with self-efficacy for self-regulation, and (c) performance–
avoidance goals were negatively associated with writing self-
efficacy as well as with self-efficacy for self-regulation in writing.
In what may be the only study to date to explore the possible
integration of motivational orientations and strategies in the do-
main of writing, Silva and Nicholls (1993) assessed American
freshmen’s general motivational orientations and beliefs about
successful writing and found four motivation–writing beliefs pro-
files: (a) an orientation to writing as an aesthetic and expressive act
that involved the beliefs that to succeed, students should express
their personal emotions and be creative in their writing; (b) an
orientation to writing as a way of improving one’s thinking skills
and knowledge of subject matter that involved the belief that
writers should be flexible in the strategies that they use; (c) an
orientation to writing as a methodical act, with attention to struc-
ture and conventions (e.g., spelling, punctuation), that involved the
belief that successful writing necessitates close attention to such
conventions; and (d) an orientation to writing from a work ethic of
conforming to authority as an act that requires investing high
effort. These findings seem to suggest that various motivational
orientations would indeed involve different perceptions of the
strategies that would contribute to success.
The Present Study
The present study aims to support the notion that writing strat-
egies and self-regulation may be perceived by students as integral
to their motivational orientation for the writing task. A secondary
aim of the study is to explore whether such integration may take
different forms in different educational contexts. Thus, our hypoth-
eses for the present study are that (a) different achievement goal
orientations for a specific writing task will incorporate different
learning and self-regulation strategies (cf. Silva & Nicholls, 1993);
(b) the same achievement goal orientation for a specific writing
task will incorporate different learning and self-regulation strate-
gies in learning environments with different instructional practices
and norms; and (c) the same achievement goal orientation will
incorporate different learning and self-regulation strategies among
students with different levels of ability, with strategies more inte-
grated within goal orientations among high-ability students in
comparison with low-ability students (cf. Alexander, 1997).
Smallest Space Analysis (SSA)
The hypotheses concerning the possible integration of motiva-
tion and strategy variables in this study make the use of person-
centered analyses (e.g., cluster analysis), such as that used by
Ainley (1993), inappropriate. Such methods rely on the a priori
definition and construction of variables and therefore do not allow
examination of the possible phenomenological integration of dif-
ferent variables. As our hypotheses focus on the nature of vari-
ables, a variable-centered approach is called for. However, factor
analytic methods are also inappropriate for the purposes of the
current study. Factor analysis assumes and seeks a simple structure
as organizing the data. The method favors attention to unidimen-
sional latent variables and, therefore, may mask complex relations
among the items in the analysis.
Thus, to test our study’s hypotheses and investigate the possible
ways by which students in different educational environments and
with different levels of ability construe achievement goal orienta-
tions and writing strategies, we used SSA (L. Guttman, 1968;
Lingoes, 1973; Shye, 1997). SSA is a nonmetric multidimensional
scaling method that uses the rank order of bivariate correlations
between each pair of items to form a pictorial representation of the
interrelations among the items in the analysis in a Euclidean space.
In the analysis, each variable (i.e., item) corresponds to a point in
the space. The proximity of each pair of items in the resulting map
represents the rank order, or strength, of the correlation between
these items, relative to the rank order of all other relations between

items included in the analysis. In providing a pictorial representa-
tion of the dispersion of items in a scale, SSA establishes the
“structural properties of variables” (R. Guttman & Greenbaum,
1998, p. 25). It thus provides a geometric representation of the
psychological space indicated by the participants’ responses to the
items in the analysis (Shye, Elizur, & Hoffman, 1994). This visual
representation can expose, and allow the examination of, underly-
ing dimensions and structural relations that organize the partici-
pants’ responses to the different items. It thus breaks the bound-
aries between variables and allows constructs that share meaning
to overlap.
The analysis of the map starts with an examination of the degree
of fit between the resulting organization of items in space and the
observed correlations among the items. The fit is indicated by the
Guttman–Lingoes coefficient of alienation (Borg & Lingoes,
1987). The coefficient varies between 0 and 1, with lower values
indicating better fit. A coefficient below .25 represents a reason-
able fit, and a coefficient below .20 is considered a good degree of
fit. The analysis follows with the specification of regions that
correspond to the hypothesized theoretical constructs assessed by
the items. Unlike a cluster, which refers to a group of items
separated from other items by empty space, a region refers to a
group of items separated by a theoretical boundary (R. Guttman &
Greenbaum, 1998). A region signifies the universe of content, or
the concept as it is represented by the responses of the participants.
Each point in that region is a hypothetical item assessing one
unique aspect of the concept. The items that appear in the map—
the observed data—are but an inevitably small sample of the
potential items assessing the concept (Shye, 1978, 1988). Hence,
the larger the region in the map, the more varied its meaning for
the participants.
This representation provides an opportunity to examine the
meaning of items, of groups of items, and of the structure and form
of the psychological space that groups of items capture in students’
responses in light of the theoretical assumptions concerning the
distribution of items. For a more thorough discussion of the inter-
pretation of SSA, see R. Guttman and Greenbaum (1998), Canter
(1985), and Shye (1997).
In the current study, we adopt a variable-centered approach for
investigating the possible integration of motivational orientations
and strategies: SSA analyses that include items assessing the
various goal orientations, perceived goal structures, writing effi-
cacy, and various strategies. The SSA allows the motivational
items, which were constructed to assess distinct variables, to be
distributed along with all other items, permitting items from var-
ious reliable scales to share space and thus indicate shared mean-
ing. Findings of regions that include items from motivational
scales as well as strategies would support our hypothesis concern-
ing the phenomenological integration of motivation and strategies.
The hypotheses that the integration of goal orientations and strat-
egies may be different in different contexts and among students
with different levels of ability is analyzed through separate SSA
analyses for groups from different schools and different levels of
achievement.
In the present study, we collected data from students in two
educational environments that ascribe to different educational ap-
proaches: traditional and authentic (cf. Newmann & Wehlage,
1993). The traditional approach to creating learning environments
emphasizes abstract skill and specific content acquisition and their
evaluation. In comparison, the authentic approach emphasizes the
relevance of learning to life outside of school by constructing
environments that resemble the real world with its complexity and
limitations. The tasks in authentic environments provide opportu-
nities and possibilities that are present also outside academic
settings (Herrington & Oliver, 2000; Roth, 1995). Thus, we may
expect that students in authentic environments would endorse
higher mastery goals and lower performance goals than would
students in traditional environments. The difference in meaning of
the task may also result in a more complex construction of the
purpose of writing among students in authentic environments that
may manifest in more integrated purpose–strategy constructions.
Method
Participants
Participants were 211 ninth-grade Israeli Jewish students (98
boys and 103 girls) from 11 classes in two high schools in the
south of Israel. The two schools represent different learning envi-
ronments. One school defines itself as a traditional environment
that is geared toward excellence. Lessons in this school, writing
lessons included, are characterized by recitation, homework, ex-
ams, and grades. Writing lessons are 45 min long and take place in
the classroom. Students are tested frequently and receive numeri-
cal grades on their writing assignments and a term grade in writing
three times a year. More often than not, writing topics are assigned
by the teacher. Although the school prides itself on students’
achievements, it is also committed to creating a positive social
environment, and social activities for students are abundant. All
five ninth-grade classes in the school participated, and the sample
included 151 students from this school.
The other school defines itself as an authentic environment. Five
years prior to data collection, this school became involved in a
reform project that aimed to turn the school into an environment
that is relevant to students’ lives. Most lessons in the school are
now conducted with methods of inquiry. Lessons are 90 min long
and take place in various settings (classroom, computer lab, li-
brary, yard). Writing lessons in this school are characterized by
personal and group projects that concern issues relevant to stu-
dents’ lives. Teachers use alternative methods of evaluation of
writing assignments, and these are commonly meant to be forma-
tive and do not involve numerical grades. For example, the teacher
provides personal verbal or written feedback at different stages of
the writing project. End of the year evaluations are written and not
numerical and focus on the student’s strengths and on points for
improvement. This school is considerably smaller than the tradi-
tional school, as is often the case with alternative educational
environments. Both ninth-grade classes participated, and the sam-
ple included 60 students from this school. The relatively small
number of students from this school raises a concern regarding the
reliability of findings. However, for the purpose of the study, it
was important to sample a distinct group of students from a unique
educational environment. These environments tend to serve a
smaller population than do traditional schools.
Procedure
Participants completed a writing assignment in their classrooms.
To make the experience as similar as possible to students’ norma-
55

tive school writing experiences, we consulted teachers concerning
the appropriate format, and it was the teachers who administered
the assignment to students as part of a regular writing lesson. The
assignment asked students to write an essay about the topic, “What
is true friendship?” The instructions involved the suggestion to
consider “what characterizes a good friend” and to “compare
relationships between friends to relationships between siblings.”
Teachers told the students that they would collect and evaluate the
essays. Students were not limited by time. All students completed
the assignment within approximately 30 min. Following comple-
tion of the assignment, research assistants entered the classrooms
and asked students to complete a survey about their engagement in
the writing task. Although such self-report instruments have lim-
itations in comparison with other methods of assessing strategy use
(e.g., think aloud, online reporting, stimulated recall), they are
more efficient and have been shown to be valid when administered
immediately after engagement (Pintrich, Wolters, & Baxter, 2000).
The research assistants explained that the survey was part of an
academic study of high school students’ experiences in academic
writing and that responses were anonymous and confidential. The
survey included scales that assessed students’ achievement goals
for the task, their perceived goal structure for the task, their
efficacy for the task, and the strategies that they used in the task.
Instruments
All items in the study appear in the Appendix.
Achievement goals, goal structure, and academic efficacy.
Personal mastery–approach goals, personal performance–approach
goals, personal performance–avoidance goals, mastery goal struc-
ture, performance goal structure, and academic efficacy were as-
sessed with scales adapted from the Patterns of Adaptive Learning
Survey (Midgley et al., 2000). These scales were translated to
Hebrew and were used in previous studies that confirmed validity
and reliability (Bereby-Meyer & Kaplan, 2005; Levy, Kaplan, &
Patrick, 2004; Levy-Tossman, Kaplan, & Assor, 2007). Items were
modified and phrased to focus on writing. Two items assessing
mastery–avoidance goals were adapted from Elliot and McGre-
gor’s (2001) work, and the third additional item in this scale was
written for this study.
Learning strategies and self-regulation in writing. Fourteen
self-regulation strategies in writing were assessed with a self-
report instrument developed and validated by Lichtinger (2004;
Lichtinger, Kaplan, & Gorodetsky, 2006). The development of the
instrument involved eliciting writing strategies through a process
that included individual microlevel observations of the writing
process of high-, middle-, and low-ability high school students and
using the observation notes as a trigger for a stimulated-recall
interview concerning strategies used in writing. The 100 strategies
that emerged were transformed into self-report items and were
administered as a part of a questionnaire to an independent sample
of high school students. Factor analyses resulted in 46 items that
assess 14 strategies, including cognitive strategies, such as reader
awareness and eliciting a context; metacognitive strategies, such as
monitoring content and regulating attention; motivational strate-
gies, such as enhancing task value and administering self-praise;
and behavioral strategies, such as seeking help. The validity of the
instrument was supported through correlations with established
measures of self-regulated learning (e.g., Motivated Strategies for
Learning Questionnaire; Pintrich, Smith, Gracia, & Mckeachie,
1993; see Lichtinger, 2004; Lichtinger et al., 2006).
Level of achievement. Students’ scores on the writing assign-
ment provided an indicator of their level of ability in writing. The
scores were determined according to the Israeli Ministry of Edu-
cation standards, which assigns 40% of the score to content (quan-
tity and quality of ideas that are relevant to the topic), 20% of the
score to structure (rhetorical and graphical organization), 20% of
the score to style (e.g., richness of vocabulary, grammar), and 20%
of the score to aesthetics (e.g., clarity of handwriting, appropriate
language). Each student’s assignment was independently coded by
two writing teachers who were not from the research schools.
There was 90% agreement between the two coders. In the cases
where there was a difference in the coders’ evaluation, evaluations
were averaged. Scores range on a scale from 0 to 100. Although
achievement is an indicator of ability as well as motivation, stu-
dents’ level of achievement on the task was deemed a sufficient
indicator of the individual-difference component in the present
study.
Analysis
The specification of boundaries between regions in the SSA
maps in the current study involved a combination of theoretically
informed and subjective interpretations. The main guiding criteria
for specifying regions in the map were the theoretical assumptions
of achievement goal theory about the distinctions among motiva-
tional orientations and goal structures. These theoretical assump-
tions provide hypotheses for the organization of items in the SSA
maps. For example, on the basis of the theoretical distinction
between mastery and performance goals, we hypothesized that the
theoretical mastery–performance distinction would manifest in
items that assess mastery goals falling on one end of the map,
items that assess performance goals falling on the other end of the
map, and items that may be perceived by participants to touch on
both mastery and performance goals to varying degrees falling in
between, depending on their perceived relative relation to the two
constructs. The boundary separating the area with items assessing
mastery goals and items assessing performance goals would create
the mastery and performance goals theoretical regions.
In addition to the mastery–performance distinction, the other
theoretical assumptions that provided hypotheses concerning the
organization of items in the present study were environmental goal
structures–personal goal orientations and approach orientations–
avoidance orientations. Another assumption concerned the distinc-
tion between items assessing motivational variables and the writ-
ing strategies. Because these distinctions are orthogonal to each
other, we did not expect them to overlap and to be ordered
sequentially (an organization labeled a “simplex”). This theoretical
assumption led us to search for regions organized circularly, with
dimensions crossing each other in the Euclidean space (an orga-
nization labeled a “circumplex;” R. Guttman & Greenbaum, 1998).
Thus, boundaries were marked between regions in the map that
housed items assessing the same motivational construct (cf. R.
Guttman & Greenbaum, 1998). In addition, however, attention was
given to overlapping clusters of items in the marking of regions.
Thus, when possible, regions captured areas housing distinct mo-
tivational constructs. However, when groups of items assessing
different constructs overlapped, regions captured this overlap.

Similar guidelines were applied to regions involving writing strat-
egies. It is the organization of all of these items and regions in the
spatial map, composed on the basis of the ordinal rank of relations
among all items (rather than the absolute values of these relations),
that provides an insight into the meaning of the items to students
within each group. Of importance, as the study’s purpose concerns
the meanings underlying students’ construction of motivation and
self-regulation strategies and the hypotheses concern the organi-
zation of items into regions, the analysis focuses on the emerging
organization of items in the SSA maps and on comparing the
organization of students from different groups.
Although the study’s hypotheses are tested with SSA, we nev-
ertheless begin our analyses with a confirmatory factor analysis to
establish the psychometric properties of the variables and thus
provide a stronger basis for interpreting the relations between
items. This also allows for comparison of the results from this
study with those of other studies in the literature.
Results
A confirmatory factor analysis run using AMOS 5 (Arbuckle,
2003) with all items in the study supported the structure of the
constructs, ␹2
(898) ⫽ 1,370.53, p ⬍ .05, normed fit index ⫽ .93,
root-mean-square error of approximation ⫽ .045. Table 1 presents
the descriptive statistics and reliability of the variables in the study.
All motivational scales had satisfactory reliability. Seven out of the
14 writing strategies had good reliabilities, Cronbach’s ␣s ⫽ .71 to
.90. Three strategies had reasonable reliabilities at .66 or above.
Three strategies (planning during writing, eliciting context, and
help seeking) manifested a somewhat lower reliability of around
.60, and one strategy (self-evaluation) manifested low reliability at
.54. As the purpose of the study was not to make claims concern-
ing specific strategies but rather to investigate more generally
whether strategies are considered elements in students’ goal ori-
entations for engagement, we elected to include these strategies in
the analyses. Conclusions concerning the findings related to these
four strategies should be taken with caution.
Correlations
Table 2 presents the correlations between the motivational vari-
ables and the writing strategies for the whole sample. The overall
pattern of correlations among the motivational variables generally
resembles the patterns found in other studies on motivational
orientations. Mastery–approach goals were strongly correlated
with academic efficacy and with mastery goal structure and
weakly correlated with personal performance goals and goal struc-
ture. Mastery–approach goals were also strongly correlated with
mastery–avoidance goals. Mastery–avoidance goals, in turn, were
moderately correlated with the personal performance goals vari-
ables. Mastery–avoidance was also correlated more strongly with
performance–approach and avoidance goal structure than with
mastery goal structure. Performance–approach and avoidance
goals were very strongly correlated, equally weakly correlated
with efficacy and with mastery goal structure, and strongly corre-
lated with the performance goal structure variables. The two per-
formance goal structure variables were strongly correlated.
Mastery–approach goals, mastery goal structure, and efficacy
were positively and significantly associated with all of the strate-
gies as well as with achievement on the task. The magnitudes of
the correlations, however, varied markedly between the strategies,
ranging from r ⫽ .20 to .75 for personal mastery–approach goals,
from r ⫽ .18 to .42 for mastery goal structure, and from r ⫽ .15
to .54 for efficacy. Notably, the correlations between mastery–
approach goals and the strategies of task-value encouragement and
planning ahead were very high. In comparison, mastery–
avoidance, performance–approach and avoidance goals, and per-
formance–approach and avoidance goal structures were positively
associated with some of the strategies but not with others. Of
interest, none of these motivational variables was associated with
checking and correcting or with eliciting context. These variables
were also not associated with achievement on the task. Also, the
personal performance goal variables were not associated with
verbalization and planning during writing, performance–avoidance
goals were not associated with organization, and the performance
goal structure variables were not associated with help seeking.
This pattern of relations also generally resembles findings from
previous studies.
MANOVA
To test the hypotheses concerning the possible relations of type
of learning environment and of different levels of ability with the
construction of motivational orientations and strategies, we di-
vided the sample into four groups on the basis of school member-
ship and level of achievement on the task (40% of students at the
top and 40% at the bottom of the achievement distribution in each
school). MANOVA analyses were conducted to characterize the
students in the four groups. The results indicated that the groups
differed significantly with regard to their motivational profiles,
F(24, 447) ⫽ 2.54, p ⬍ .01; Wilks’s lambda ⫽ 0.69, p ⬍ .001,
␩2
⫽ .12, and the patterns of writing strategies, F(42, 451) ⫽ 2.16,
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of Variables in the Study
Variable No. items M (SD) ␣
Mastery–approach goals 5 2.57 (1.07) .89
Mastery–avoidance goals 3 1.94 (0.85) .67
Performance–approach goals 5 1.71 (0.89) .90
Performance–avoidance goals 4 1.81 (0.87) .79
Mastery goal structure 6 2.92 (0.96) .84
Performance–approach goal structure 5 1.90 (0.83) .75
Performance–avoidance goal structure 6 1.95 (0.81) .79
Self-efficacy 5 3.44 (0.95) .79
Attention regulation 4 3.54 (1.06) .84
Checking and correcting 5 3.48 (1.24) .90
Reader awareness 5 2.63 (1.03) .81
Monitoring content 3 3.20 (1.04) .66
Success encouragement 2 2.83 (1.23) .74
Organization 3 3.45 (1.17) .79
Verbalization 2 2.09 (1.20) .69
Planning during writing 3 3.80 (0.86) .60
Self-evaluation 2 3.38 (1.06) .54
Eliciting context 2 3.16 (1.08) .59
Task-value encouragement 5 2.66 (0.93) .71
Planning ahead 3 2.58 (1.09) .72
Self-praise 2 1.74 (1.04) .68
Help seeking 5 1.58 (0.69) .61
Achievement 69.24 (14.18)
57

p ⬍ .01; Wilks’s lambda ⫽ 0.58, p ⬍ .001, ␩2
⫽ .16. Levene’s
tests of equality of effort variance indicated that the assumption of
equality was supported in all but one motivational variable (per-
formance–approach goals, F ⫽ 3.84, p ⫽ .01) and two strategies
(planning during writing, F ⫽ 6.79, p ⬍ .001; and self-praise, F ⫽
3.90, p ⬍ .01). Table 3 presents the results of Tukey post hoc tests
assessing differences in the study’s variables among the groups.1
The findings indicate that there were no differences among the
groups in perceived mastery goal structure and in perceived per-
formance–avoidance goal structure. However, the two groups of
students in the traditional school reported significantly higher
perceived performance–approach goal structure than did the high-
achieving students in the authentic school. In addition, the low-
achieving students in the authentic school environment reported
significantly less self-efficacy and less mastery–approach orienta-
tion than did students in the traditional environment—both high
and low achieving. The low-achieving students in the authentic
school environment also reported less mastery–avoidance goals
than did the low-achieving students at the traditional school. The
low-achieving students at the traditional school, in turn, reported
significantly more performance–approach goals than did the high-
achieving students at the authentic school and more performance–
avoidance goals than did the high-achieving students at both the
authentic and the traditional schools.
No significant differences were found among the four groups in
reported use of the seven strategies of regulating attention, reader
awareness, success encouragement, verbalization, eliciting con-
text, administering self-praise, and help seeking. The low-
achieving students in the authentic school environment reported
significantly less use of the six strategies of checking and correct-
ing, monitoring content, organization, planning during writing,
self-evaluation, and task-value enhancement than did the high-
achieving students in the traditional school environment, and,
except for monitoring content but with the addition of planning
ahead, they reported less use of strategies than did the low-
achieving students in the traditional school environment. The
high-achieving students in the authentic school environment re-
ported more use of checking and correcting than did the low-
achieving students at the same school but less than did the high-
achieving students at the traditional school. The high-achieving
students in the authentic school environment also reported less use
of organization than did the high-achieving students at the tradi-
tional school. Overall, it seems that students at the authentic school
were less likely to report use of strategies than their counterparts at
the traditional school. This was particularly the case for the low-
achieving students.
SSA
A two-dimensional SSA analysis that included items assessing
motivational orientations, writing regulation strategies, and self-
efficacy was conducted for each group.2
All coefficient of alien-
1
Each of the four groups significantly differed from all others on task
achievement. However, for the purposes of this study, which aimed to test
for differences among students with different levels of achievement within
each educational environment, the labels “high achieving” and “low
achieving” seemed appropriate.
2
Because the number of variables included in the analysis is relatively
high and because the research question is concerned with the location of
strategies within motivational orientations, the analysis included the mo-
tivational variables at the item level and the strategies at the scale level.
Table 2
Correlations Between Motivational Variables and Writing Strategies
Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Mastery–app 1.00
2. Mastery–avd .55ⴱⴱ
1.00
3. Performance–app .29ⴱⴱ
.43ⴱⴱ
1.00
4. Performance–avd .27ⴱⴱ
.38ⴱⴱ
.82ⴱⴱ
1.00
5. Mastery structure .50ⴱⴱ
.19ⴱⴱ
.16ⴱ
.17ⴱ
1.00
6. Performance–app structure .33ⴱⴱ
.39ⴱⴱ
.63ⴱⴱ
.64ⴱⴱ
.19ⴱⴱ
1.00
7. Performance–avd structure .39ⴱⴱ
.38ⴱⴱ
.63ⴱⴱ
.69ⴱⴱ
.32ⴱⴱ
.67ⴱⴱ
1.00
8. Efficacy .50ⴱⴱ
.28ⴱⴱ
.21ⴱⴱ
.21ⴱⴱ
.39ⴱⴱ
.26ⴱⴱ
.32ⴱⴱ
1.00
Attention regulation .53ⴱⴱ
.32ⴱⴱ
.25ⴱⴱ
.23ⴱⴱ
.33ⴱⴱ
.28ⴱⴱ
.21ⴱⴱ
.42ⴱⴱ
Checking and correcting .35ⴱⴱ
.14 .14 .09 .24ⴱⴱ
.11 .14 .29ⴱⴱ
Reader awareness .37ⴱⴱ
.31ⴱⴱ
.34ⴱⴱ
.39ⴱⴱ
.18ⴱ
.38ⴱⴱ
.35ⴱⴱ
.29ⴱⴱ
Monitoring content .46ⴱⴱ
.35ⴱⴱ
.23ⴱⴱ
.26ⴱⴱ
.29ⴱⴱ
.28ⴱⴱ
.23ⴱⴱ
.38ⴱⴱ
Success encouragement .58ⴱⴱ
.31ⴱⴱ
.28ⴱⴱ
.25ⴱⴱ
.42ⴱⴱ
.31ⴱⴱ
.26ⴱⴱ
.45ⴱⴱ
Organization .42ⴱⴱ
.24ⴱⴱ
.21ⴱⴱ
.13 .39ⴱⴱ
.30ⴱⴱ
.24ⴱⴱ
.33ⴱⴱ
Verbalization .28ⴱⴱ
.17ⴱ
.14 .11 .20ⴱⴱ
.19ⴱ
.19ⴱ
.17ⴱ
Planning during writing .47ⴱⴱ
.29ⴱⴱ
.12 .13 .34ⴱⴱ
.25ⴱⴱ
.21ⴱⴱ
.38ⴱⴱ
Self-evaluation .42ⴱⴱ
.32ⴱⴱ
.21ⴱⴱ
.23ⴱⴱ
.33ⴱⴱ
.22ⴱⴱ
.20ⴱⴱ
.38ⴱⴱ
Eliciting context .31ⴱⴱ
.07 .13 .13 .32ⴱⴱ
.03 .09 .53ⴱⴱ
Task-value encouragement .72ⴱⴱ
.45ⴱⴱ
.33ⴱⴱ
.33ⴱⴱ
.39ⴱⴱ
.35ⴱⴱ
.33ⴱⴱ
.54ⴱⴱ
Planning ahead .75ⴱⴱ
.26ⴱⴱ
.23ⴱⴱ
.22ⴱⴱ
.31ⴱⴱ
.32ⴱⴱ
.24ⴱⴱ
.32ⴱⴱ
Self-praise .36ⴱⴱ
.18ⴱ
.34ⴱⴱ
.29ⴱⴱ
.27ⴱⴱ
.24ⴱⴱ
.26ⴱⴱ
.26ⴱⴱ
Help seeking .21ⴱⴱ
.33ⴱⴱ
.20ⴱⴱ
.18ⴱ
.22ⴱⴱ
.07 .10 .15ⴱ
Achievement .20ⴱⴱ
.03 .00 –.09 .25ⴱⴱ
.11 .04 .25ⴱⴱ
Note. app ⫽ approach; avd ⫽ avoidance. ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .01.

ation levels were smaller than .15, suggesting a good fit with the
data. Three researchers independently drew the regions in each
analysis, following the guidelines specified above. Although the
guidelines provide clear steps, in some cases, the decision con-
cerning the location of the regions may be given to different
interpretations. The interpretations of the three researchers were
compared, and a consensual solution for each map was chosen
through discussion. In only three cases was there a somewhat
different interpretation by one of the researchers that needed to be
discussed. The minority opinions are noted in footnotes at the
relevant place below. Figures 1 and 2 present the results of the
analyses of the high achievers in the traditional and authentic
learning environments respectively, and Figures 3 and 4 present
the results of the analyses of the low achievers in the traditional
and authentic learning environments, respectively. All items and
their codes in the maps appear in the Appendix.
The results pointed to some similarities but also to quite appar-
ent differences between the SSA maps of the four groups. The
similarities among the groups included a general distinction be-
tween regions with items assessing personal motivational orienta-
tions and goal structures (with the exception of a somewhat less
clear distinction between performance goals and goal structures
among high-achieving students in the traditional environment3
).
Also, in all four groups, the items assessing personal performance–
approach goals and performance–avoidance goals were integrated
into one region. Another notable similarity among the groups was
that certain strategies were integrated with items assessing mastery
goals—particularly mastery–approach goals. Value encourage-
ment, for example, and, to some degree, attention regulation were
integrated within mastery–approach goals among three out of the
four groups and were in close proximity to mastery–approach
goals in the fourth group. These findings provide support for the
notion that strategies can be perceived as integral elements within
the purpose for engagement in the task.
However, there were also quite marked differences between the
maps of the groups. The patterns of differences can be described
along students’ level of achievement, type of learning environ-
ment, and the intersection between type of environment and level
of achievement.
Level of achievement. The main clear difference between the
maps of the high-achieving and low-achieving students was in the
level of integration of writing strategies and motivational orienta-
tions. In the maps of high-achieving students, most, if not all,
strategies were located within regions demarcated by items assess-
ing the motivational orientations. In contrast, among the low-
achieving students, although some writing strategies appeared
within regions of the motivational variable, quite a few strategies
did not.4
Type of learning environment. Some apparent differences be-
tween the maps seemed to be along the dimension of type of
3
One researcher suggested that in the map of the high-achieving stu-
dents in the traditional environment, personal performance–approach and
avoidance goals and performance goal structure should be marked as
distinct regions, similar to the map of the high-achieving students in the
authentic environment.
4
One researcher suggested that in the map of the low-achieving students
in the authentic environment, the mastery–approach goals/efficacy region
should also include the group of strategies adjacent to it.
Table 3
Differences Among the Four Student Groups on Motivation and Writing Strategies
Variable
High-achieving traditional
school (n ⫽ 63)
High-achieving authentic
school (n ⫽ 25)
Low-achieving traditional
school (n ⫽ 58)
Low-achieving authentic
school (n ⫽ 23)
Mastery–approach goals 2.68a
2.58 2.84b
1.96a,b
Mastery–avoidance goals 1.97 1.72 2.25a
1.67a
Performance–approach goals 1.75 1.42a
2.07a
1.58
Performance–avoidance goals 1.72a
1.46b
2.18a,b
1.85
Mastery goal structure 3.19 2.92 2.81 2.71
Performance–approach goal structure 2.10a
1.54a,b
2.09b
1.75
Performance–avoidance goal structure 1.97 1.69 2.15 2.02
Self-efficacy 3.65a
3.41 3.51b
2.87a,b
Attention regulation 3.56 3.82 3.74 3.08
Checking and correcting 3.95a
3.13a
3.55b
2.71a,b
Reader awareness 2.52 2.73 2.93 2.46
Monitoring content 3.46a
2.91 3.22 2.78a
Success encouragement 2.85 2.56 3.10 2.33
Organization 3.99a,b
2.83b
3.47a,c
2.43a,c
Verbalization 2.17 1.90 2.20 2.00
Planning during writing 3.99a
3.61 3.89b
3.29a,b
Self-evaluation 3.61a
3.20 3.51b
2.76a,b
Eliciting context 3.14 3.46 3.09 2.67
Task-value encouragement 2.77a
2.38 2.90b
2.10a,b
Planning ahead 2.65 2.49 2.76a
1.98a
Self-praise 1.65 1.74 1.97 1.50
Help seeking 1.54 1.45 1.76 1.56
Achievement 81.68a
76.88a
60.73a
49.65a
Note. Coefficients in the table are means. Coefficients in the same row that share a superscript letter are significantly different from each other.
Coefficients without superscript letters are not significantly different from the other coefficients.
59

learning environment. For example, the strategies of planning
during writing and self-evaluation were integrated within mastery–
approach goals among students in the traditional environment but
not among students in the authentic environment. Of interest,
among high-achieving students in the authentic environment, these
two strategies seemed to serve personal performance goals. Sim-
ilarly, the motivational strategy of self-praise seemed to serve
personal mastery goals among students in the authentic environ-
ment but not among students in the traditional environment.
Among high-achieving students in the traditional environment,
self-praise seemed to be associated with efficacy, and among the
low-achieving students in the traditional environment, it appeared
in the personal performance goals region.
Type of learning environment and level of achievement. There
were also apparent differences between the maps along the inter-
section of type of learning environment and level of achievement.
For example, differences between the two high-achieving groups
in the different environments were apparent in the distribution of
strategies within spaces of motivational orientations. Among the
high achievers in the traditional environment, most strategies were
found within the regions demarcated by items assessing mastery–
approach goals and mastery goal structure. Only one strategy,
catering to the reader, was found in the performance–approach
goals region. In contrast, among the high achievers in the authentic
environment, strategies were distributed among both mastery and
performance motivational orientations and goal structures. Also, in
both high-achieving groups, some strategies appeared in the mas-
tery goal structure region, however, although one strategy was
similar in both groups (success encouragement) the other strategies
were different between groups: eliciting context and help seeking
in the traditional environment and verbalization and planning
ahead in the authentic environment.
The intersection of type of learning environment and level of
ability was even more pronounced in the differences between the
maps of the low-achieving students in the two environments.
Among the low achievers in the traditional environment, there
were quite clear regional distinctions between achievement goals,
goal structures, and several strategies. In comparison, the map of
the low achievers in the authentic environment was characterized
by a close proximity of all of the items. In this latter map, a
distinction could be noted on the personal goals–environmental
emphasis dimension and on the personal mastery–approach and
performance goals dimension. The mastery–performance distinc-
tion did not manifest among the goal structure items. Overall, it
seems that, in comparison with the relative organization of items in
the map of the low achievers in the traditional school, the organi-
zation of items in the map of the low achievers in the authentic
school seemed to correspond less with theoretical distinctions.
10
2
6
9
4
14
11
12
7
3
13
5
1
8
Mastery-approach
goals region
Performance approach &
Avoid goals & performance
structure region
Mastery avoid
goals
region
Mastery structure
region
Efficacy region
e1
e2
e3
e4
e5
mapI1
mapI2
mapI3
mapI4
mapI5
mavI1
mavI2
mavI3
papI5
papI2
papI1
papI3
papI4
pavI3
pavI4
pavI1
pavI2
mS2
mS5
mS1
mS3
mS4
mS6
papS4
papS5
papS1
papS2
papS3
pavS5
pavS4
pavS6
pavS1
pavS3
pavS2
Legend
Strategy
Motivational items
Approach mastery/performance
personal goal orientation cluster
Figure 1. Smallest space analysis representation of motivation and strategies among high-achieving students
in the traditional school environment. pap ⫽ performance–approach goals; mav ⫽ mastery–avoidance goals;
map ⫽ mastery–approach goals; pav ⫽ performance–avoidance goals; mS ⫽ mastery goal structure; e ⫽ writing
efficacy.

Other clear differences along the intersection of students’ level
of achievement and type of environment include the location of
mastery–avoidance goals items and efficacy items. Mastery–
avoidance items (a) were integrated with the performance–
approach and avoidance items among the high-achieving students
in the authentic environment, (b) captured a unique region among
the high-achieving students in the traditional environment, (c)
were integrated with personal goals items among the low-
achieving students in the authentic environment, and (d) seemed to
create a central space in the map that overlapped the mastery–
approach/efficacy, mastery structure, and writing strategy regions
among low-achieving students in the traditional environment. Ef-
ficacy items (a) were integrated in one region with mastery–
approach goals items among high achievers in the authentic envi-
ronment and low achievers in the traditional environment, (b)
captured a unique region among the high achievers in the tradi-
tional environment, and (c) encompassed all other regions among
low-achieving students in the authentic environment. These find-
ings are particularly significant in light of the acceptable reliability
of the scales.
Discussion
The findings of the present study support the notion that self-
regulation of writing is not a unidimensional construct. This im-
plies that students may vary not only in the level of self-regulation
but also in the type of strategies they use while self-regulating their
engagement in a writing task. Although it may be that some
strategies are used in any type of self-regulation of writing, the use
of other components of self-regulation and specific writing strat-
egies may vary among self-regulating students.
Moreover, the findings support the theoretical perspectives that
propose a view of motivation and action as integrated (Kaplan &
Maehr, 2002; J. G. Nicholls, 1992). The findings indicated that in
all four groups of students, some strategies were located within
regions demarcated by items assessing certain motivational orien-
tations—most particularly mastery–approach goals. In light of the
satisfactory results of the confirmatory factor analysis and the
reliability of the motivational scales, the findings imply that stu-
dents construe these writing strategies as integral elements of
purposes for engagement rather than as psychological entities
distinct from task motivation. More comprehensively, the findings
suggest that adoption of a purpose for engagement in a task, such
as to learn and develop skills, also involves perception of the
strategies that are relevant for such engagement. It may be said that
students integrate motivation and strategies in an action orientation
for the task.
A few structural characteristics in the distribution of items in the
maps suggested similarities in the constructions of the motivation–
7
12
3
5
11
1
2
10
13
6
8
4
14
9
Performance
structure region
Performance approach & Avoid
goals & Mastery avoid goals
region
Mastery-approach
goals & Efficacy region
Mastery structure region
e5
e2
e1
e4
e3
mapI5
mapI4
mapI1
mapI3
mapI2
mavI3
mavI1
papI3 papI1
papI5
papI4
papI2
pavI2
pavI3
pavI1
pavI4
mS4
mS6
mS2
mS1
mS5
mS4
papS4
papS2
papS5
papS3
papS1
pavS1
pavS5
pavS6
pavS2
pavS4
pavS3
Legend
Strategy
Motivational items
Figure 2. Smallest space analysis representation of motivation and strategies among high-achieving students
in the authentic school environment. mS ⫽ mastery goal structure; pap ⫽ performance–approach goals; pav ⫽
performance–avoidance goals; mav ⫽ mastery–avoidance goals; e ⫽ writing efficacy map ⫽ mastery–approach
goals.
61

strategy orientations among all students in the sample. For exam-
ple, students did not distinguish between performance–approach
and avoidance goals, suggesting a phenomenological integration of
these conceptually distinct achievement goals in this particular
setting and task. Future research should examine more directly the
possibility that demonstrating high ability and avoiding demon-
strating low ability may be more or less distinct in students’
construction of purposes for engagement in different units of
analysis, settings, and types of tasks. In contrast, students did
distinguish between personal goals and environmental goal struc-
tures, indicating that these high school students perceived a dif-
ference in the psychological meaning of personal orientations
toward engagement and the environmental emphases on these
orientations. In addition, there were two strategies—value encour-
agement and attention regulation—that all students seemed to view
as serving mastery–approach goals. Thus, it may be that some
writing strategies are more prone to be perceived as compatible
with constructing deep understanding of the material, whereas
others would be more compatible with demonstrating ability, de-
veloping creative or critical perspectives and skills, or achieving
high grades.
However, the findings also suggested that the nature of the
action orientations may vary between students from different
learning environments and with different levels of achievement. In
addition to the similarities between groups in the strategies found
in the mastery–approach region, there were also differences. For
example, among students in the traditional environment, engaging
with the purpose of learning and developing skills involved the
strategy of self-evaluation and did not involve the strategy of
self-praise. Students in the authentic environment seemed to hold
the opposite view and saw self-praise, not self-evaluation, as
serving a mastery goal orientation. Self-evaluation was actually
tied to the purpose of demonstrating ability among the high achiev-
ers in that environment. This suggests that in different educational
environments and among students of different levels of ability,
pursuing a task with what seems to be the same motivational
orientation may call for different engagement strategies.
Indeed, these and other findings seem to imply that there may be
differences in the meaning of the motivational orientations them-
selves among students from different environments and with dif-
ferent levels of ability. For example, among capable students in the
authentic environment and low achievers in the traditional envi-
ronment, the purpose of learning and understanding seemed to be
inseparable from students’ sense of efficacy. In contrast, high-
achieving students in the traditional environment construed effi-
cacy as independent of motivational orientations. Among low
achievers in the authentic environment, the efficacy region encom-
passed all motivational items. Thus, in light of the high reliability
of the self-efficacy scale and the assumption that in SSA the size
of a region indicates its psychological significance and complexity,
we may conclude that among the low-achieving students in the
authentic environment, purposes for engagement in the writing
task were tied to efficacy. This was not the case in the other
groups. It is interesting to note that the MANOVA results sug-
gested that the low achievers in the authentic environment had the
lowest level of efficacy for the task. However, this important
finding fails to highlight what seems to be the central role of
efficacy in engagement in the writing task for these students.
Another example for the apparent differences in the meaning of
motivational orientations among the groups involves the location
of mastery–avoidance items in the maps. Among high achievers in
the traditional environment, the concern with avoiding not devel-
8
7
9
1
13
14
3
4
2
11
5
12
6
10
Performance approach &
avoid goals region
Mastery avoid
goals region
Performance
structure region
Mastery-approach
goals
& Efficacy region
Strategies
region
Mastery structure
region
e2
e5
e3
e1
e4
mapI1
mapI5
mapI2
mapI4
mapI3
mavI1
mavI2
mavI3
pavS3
pavS4
pavS1
pavS5
pavS2
pavI2
pavI1
pavI3
PavI4
mS3
mS5
mS1
mS6
mS2
mS4
papS5
papS4
papS2
papS3
papS1
pavS3
pavS1
pavS6
pavS4
pavS5
pavS2
Legend
Strategy
Motivational items
Figure 3. Smallest space analysis representation of motivation and strategies among low-achieving students in
the traditional school environment. pav ⫽ performance–avoidance goals; mav ⫽ mastery–avoidance goals;
map ⫽ mastery–approach goals; pap ⫽ performance–approach goals; mS ⫽ mastery goal structure; e ⫽ writing
efficacy.

oping competence was a unique purpose, conceptually distinct
from other motivational orientations. In contrast, among high
achievers in the authentic environment, this concern was insepa-
rable from performance–approach and avoidance goals and there-
fore seemed to be understood in terms of social comparison of
ability. Finally, mastery avoidance goals seemed to capture signif-
icant spaces in the maps of low-achieving students in both educa-
tional environments: It was integrated with the various personal
goals in the authentic environment and with performance goals and
mastery and performance goal structures in the traditional envi-
ronment. These findings seem to suggest that unlike high achiev-
ers, low-achieving students consider avoiding not developing com-
petence as a general characteristic of engagement. This
understanding is quite different from the one emerging from the
MANOVA results, which indicated that level of mastery–
avoidance was higher among the low achievers in the traditional
environment than among the low achievers in the authentic envi-
ronment but not different between each of these groups and the
high achievers in both environments.
Thus, the findings of the present study seem to highlight the
possibility that motivational orientations may actually mean some-
thing different for students who learn in different educational
environments and with different levels of ability and that these
different meanings impel students to use different types of strate-
gies for engagement. The confirmatory factor and MANOVA
analyses demonstrate that the data in the current study manifest
similar properties to data from other studies using these motiva-
tional scales. However, findings from the SSA maps raise ques-
tions concerning the efficiency of confirmatory factor analysis to
confirm structural properties of variables. In addition, analysis of
variance methods may not reveal all that there is to reveal about
the meaning of motivational and engagement variables. SSA, with
its different underlying assumptions and mathematical computa-
tions, may be a more useful method to elicit the structural prop-
erties and the meanings that groups of students assign to items
assessing conceptually distinct constructs.
Another important finding of the present study was that level of
integration between motivational orientations for the task and
writing self-regulation strategies differed by student achievement
level. Unlike high achievers, low-achieving students in both school
environments seemed to have construed a number of self-
regulation and writing strategies as distinct from purposes of
engagement. One possibility is that these low-achieving students
do not construe a purpose for using these strategies. When students
are not familiar with a certain strategy or do not feel highly skilled
in the self-regulation of their writing, they are less likely to
Performance goals
items region
3
1
4
2
Mastery
approach goals
items region
Goal structure
items region
Efficacy
region
7
8
14
9
10
11
13
12
6
5
e2
e1
e4
e3
e5
mapI2
mapI5
mapI4
mapI1
mapI3
mavI1
mavI3
mavI2
papI3
papI5
papI1 papI2
papI4
pavI2
pavI4
pavI3
pavI1
mS4
mS6
mS1
mS2
mS3
mS5
mS6
papS4
papS3
papS5
papS1
pavS5
pavS1
pavS2
PavS4
pavS6
pavS2
Legend
Strategy
Motivational items
papS2
Mastery
avoid region
Figure 4. Smallest space analysis representation of motivation and strategies among low-achieving students in
the authentic school environment. mS ⫽ mastery goal structure; e ⫽ writing efficacy; pav ⫽ performance–
avoidance goals; map ⫽ mastery–approach goals; pap ⫽ performance–approach goals; mav ⫽ mastery–
avoidance goals.
63

perceive such strategies as action possibilities for engagement.
However, the relations depicted in the maps can still be interpreted
as indicating a relationship between certain strategies and motiva-
tion toward the task. Therefore, an alternative interpretation may
be that although the low-achieving students may perceive a rela-
tionship between purpose and strategies, their view of this rela-
tionship is rather mechanical (cf. Silva & Nicholls, 1993, third and
fourth profiles). Thus, the findings may suggest that similar to
novices, the low-achieving students viewed the strategies as dis-
tinct from the flow of the writing activity and as actions to be
mastered separately from the overall task. In comparison, the
high-achieving students manifested an expert pattern in which
strategies are fully integrated into engagement in action (Alex-
ander, 1997).
Of interest, the findings also seem to suggest that the authentic
environment may be less facilitative of strategies deemed benefi-
cial for writing than the traditional environment. The high-
achieving students in the authentic environment seemed to be
much less concerned with strategies such as checking and correct-
ing, monitoring content, planning during writing, and organization
than did the high-achieving students from the traditional school.
They also reported lower use of self-evaluation and task-value
enhancement.
More worrisome, perhaps, is the possible indication that the
authentic environment may be not facilitative for low-achieving
students. First, the MANOVA results indicated that these students
manifested the least adaptive motivational pattern. Moreover, the
construction of motivation and strategies among these students
suggested that, in comparison with the other groups, these students
had a less clear view of distinctions between various purposes for
engagement and of relations between certain environmental em-
phases, personal motivation, and strategies. This was particularly
noteworthy when compared with the low-achieving students in the
traditional environment.
These findings seem to challenge the assumption that educa-
tional practices that are thought to emphasize mastery goals are
beneficial for the adjustment of lower achieving students. Indeed,
the findings highlight an important theoretical point, which is often
overlooked: Mastery goal structure is a psychological construct
rather than a set of practices (Maehr, 1991). Although scholars
make recommendations concerning practices that are likely to
emphasize mastery goals to students (e.g., Ames, 1992; Kaplan &
Maehr, 1999), it is students’ perceptions of these practices that
mediate their motivational processes and adjustment (Berliner,
1989). Further, as recent research suggests, students do not always
interpret teachers’ practices as intended (Patrick, Anderman, Ryan,
Edelin, & Midgley, 2001; Urdan, Kneisel, & Mason, 1999). The
current MANOVA results may suggest, for example, that students
did not interpret practices in the traditional and authentic educa-
tional environments as different in emphasis on mastery goals but
rather as different in emphasis on performance goals: Students in
the traditional environment perceived more emphasis on perfor-
mance goals than did students in the authentic environment. These
findings again point to the importance of focusing on the contex-
tual meaning that students in different environments and with
different characteristics construct for engagement.
The above findings should be taken with caution. It is important
to note that this study is a first attempt at investigating the inte-
gration of self-regulation of writing strategies and motivational
orientations. Replications are required before a strong statement
can be made regarding the phenomenological integration of moti-
vational orientations and strategies. Moreover, the current study
used relatively small samples. This was due to the commonly small
number of students in alternative schools and to the desire to
investigate the processes in a unique educational context (i.e.,
students of a certain age in a particular school). As small samples
make intercorrelations among items more susceptible to chance, no
definitive general conclusions can be drawn concerning the struc-
ture of motivational orientations and strategies in authentic and
traditional environments or with regard to the location of specific
strategies in certain motivational orientations. Despite these limi-
tations, the current study does support the more general notions of
self-regulation as a multidimensional construct, of the phenome-
nological integration of motivational orientations and strategies
into action orientations, and of the possible differences of these
action orientations among students from different educational en-
vironment and of different level of achievement.
Theoretical and Educational Implications
Conceptualizing self-regulation of writing as a multidimen-
sional construct, which may take different qualitative profiles,
should lead to a more complex and critical view on self-regulated
learning. Such conceptualization could also have implications for
the facilitation of self-regulated writing. Arguably, most current
perspectives on the role of self-regulation in learning view it as a
unidimensional construct. Although a multicomponent perspective
on cognitive or task-strategy training has been advocated and used
by several researchers (e.g., Elliott-Faust & Pressley, 1986; Gra-
ham & Harris, 1989; Schunk, 2005), this seems not to be the case
with the instruction concerning self-regulated learning.
Moreover, the findings also imply that characteristics of the
learning environment could be associated with different construc-
tions of writing action orientations. The notion of the contextual-
ized nature of the motivation–strategy orientation is in accord with
recent sociocultural perspectives on motivation and engagement
(McCaslin, 2004; McCaslin & Hickey, 2001; Turner, 2001). Dif-
ferent educational contexts that require students to engage in
different types of tasks may afford opportunities for different types
of self-regulation, attach different objectives to the same learning
strategies, and organize social interactions in which teachers and
students coregulate engagement differently (McCaslin & Good,
1996). Thus, the findings indicate that, regardless of level of
achievement, writing may mean something different in different
learning environments. These different meanings of writing in-
clude the orientation toward writing as well as how to engage in it
(cf. Silva & Nicholls, 1993).
The practical educational implications of these understandings
are that educators who seek to facilitate students’ adaptive self-
regulated learning in a subject matter should go beyond teaching a
set of strategies and supporting students’ self-efficacy to use these
strategies. These educators should attend to students’ purposes of
engagement in the task and the strategies that they perceive as
relevant for pursuit of these purposes. They should further inves-
tigate how the type of academic tasks and nature of instructional
practices relate to students’ construction of action orientations. On
the basis of these understandings, educators would be able to
facilitate adaptive engagement through the modification of envi-

ronmental affordances in ways that would support adaptive pur-
poses of engagement and integration of adaptive types of self-
regulation as elements of these purposes.
Limitations
The above interpretations should be qualified by the fact that
this study is but an initial demonstration of the integration of
self-regulation strategies and motivational orientations for engage-
ment. The findings should also be considered in light of the
relatively small size of the sample. Clearly, further support is
required, including studies that replicate the finding that different
self-regulation strategies are construed by students as actualization
of different motivational orientations in larger samples, in different
age groups, and from different countries. It is important to note
that the studies would not need to replicate the location of the same
strategies in designated motivational orientations, as these should
be understood within the unique characteristics of the specific
learning context and task. However, it would be quite interesting to
explore whether such commonalities would be found among learn-
ing environments that share many characteristics.
Another qualification to the findings of this study is that this
investigation was conducted in a specific domain: writing. Re-
cently, theorists have been emphasizing the domain specificity of
self-regulated learning (Schunk, 2005). Research in other domains
should investigate whether this finding can be generalized across
domains, across learning environments, along development, and
across groups of students with different characteristics (Pintrich &
Zusho, 2002). SSA provides a handy method of analysis for such
investigations. However, future research should use a verity of
methods, including qualitative observations, talk aloud, and inter-
views, to corroborate understandings concerning the meanings that
students construct for their engagement. The recent research pro-
grams that use online assessment of strategies (e.g., Ainley &
Patrick, 2006) are particularly promising in this regard (see Turner,
2006).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the current study provided support for the notion
that self-regulation is not a unitary construct, that motivational
orientations and certain types of self-regulation strategies are in-
tegrated in the meaning that students construct for engagement,
and that this meaning varies across educational environments and
students’ characteristics. These understandings call for a more
contextual and multifaceted approach to the assessment and also
facilitation of adaptive engagement among students.
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