Task-involving and ego-involving properties of evaluation: Effects of different feedback conditions on motivational perceptions, interest, and performance.

Abstract

I designed this study to test the hypothesis that the impact of information about performance on subsequent intrinsic motivation depends significantly on the degree to which this information promotes a task-involved or an ego-involved motivational orientation. A total of 200 fifth- and sixth-grade students with high or low school achievement were given interesting divergent thinking tasks in each of three sessions. Individual comments, numerical grades, standardized praise, or no feedback were received after Sessions 1 and 2. Results confirmed that at Session 3 (posttest), interest, performance, and attributions of effort, outcome, and the impact of evaluation to taskinvolved causes were highest at both levels of achievement after receipt of comments. Egoinvolved attributions were highest after receipt of grades and praise. These findings support the conceptualization of the feedback conditions as task involving (comments), ego involving (grades and praise), or neither (no feedback). The similar impact of grades and praise would not be predicted by cognitive evaluation theory. I discuss the importance of distinguishing between taskand ego-involved orientations in the study of continuing motivation. In several recent articles, Nicholls (1979, 1983) distinguishes among three main kinds of task motivation, according to the primary goal or focus of behavior characteristic of each. In a conceptualization similar to that suggested by deCharms (1968), Nicholls defines task involvement as a motivational state in which an activity is perceived as inherently satisfying and in which the individual is concerned primarily with assessing and developing individual mastery in relation to task demands or prior performance. Thus, greater effort is expected to yield greater competence. In ego involvement, on the other hand, attention is focused primarily on assessing ability, which is perceived as a stable dimension of individual differences. Because such capacity can only be evaluated against the performance of others, ego involvement should promote a self-worth orientation in which one's main concern is to demonstrate high ability or mask low ability relative to others. Finally, extrinsic motivation is assumed to operate when an activity is undertaken as a means to some other end. Attention is thus focused primarily on attaining the desired goal, rather than on demonstrating either individual mastery or normative ability. Nicholls (1984) has been concerned mainly with exploring the implications of task-involved and ego-involved motivation for immediate achievement behavior, whereas extrinsic motivation has been studied mainly within the context of research on the effects of incentives on subsequent interest (Lepper & Greene, 1978). In the present study, I attempt to bridge these traditions by suggesting that continuing interest