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Bradley Whittemore

Professor Monique Markoff

Educational Psychology - Section 3

8 September !"3

# $eflection of Midgley and %rdan&s Study 'n Self-(andicapping

#lthough pre)ious studies had been made into possible relations bet*een particular

aspects of students and their classrooms+ Professors Midgley and %rdan+ from %ni)ersity of

Michigan and Santa ,lara %ni)ersity+ respecti)ely+ set out to learn more about the topic

Specifically+ they *anted to inquire upon connections bet*een students& personal achie)ement

goals+ students& thoughts of the classroom goal structure+ and the use of self-handicapping

strategies .hey found se)eral correlations that pro)ed certain types of goals could predict

handicapping+ in both negati)e and positi)e trends

.he purpose of this study is to impro)e upon and further the research of pre)ious studies

in regards to self-handicapping 'ne aspect in particular that has been left out of pre)ious studies

*hich Midgley and %rdan *ish to impro)e upon is the impact of performance-a)oid goals

throughout their research .he question being asked by the researchers is ho* students& )arious

goal types and their perception of the classrooms& performance goal structure impacted trends of

self-handicapping .he authors hypothesi/ed that the classroom&s structure of personal task and

percei)ed task goals ha)e no relation to reported use of self-handicapping strategies0 that

personal performance-approach and performance-a)oid goals are positi)ely related to the

reported use of self-handicapping+ *ith personal performance-a)oid goals being more predicti)e

of handicapping than are performance-approach goals0 and that the percei)ed performance goal

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structure in the classroom is associated *ith the reported use of self-handicapping independent of

personal performance-approach and performance-a)oid goals

.he type of research conducted *as largely correlational+ because they *anted to

determine if any of the sur)eyed topics had a relation to the practice of self-handicapping .he

study&s participants included a sample of 181 2thgrade students+ comprised of 1 boys and 34

girls 'f the sample+ 5 *ere #frican #merican and 15 *ere European #merican Students

*ere read sur)ey questions by uni)ersity research assistants *hile the students& teacher sat at

their desk .he particular topic chosen to do the study on *as mathematics .he sur)ey included

questions in regards to personal task goals+ personal performance-approach and a)oid goals+ the

classroom task goal structure and the classroom performance goal structure 'ther data collected

included the students gender+ indicated on the front co)er of the sur)ey+ as *ell as the grades

from their mathematics class

.he study found that self-handicapping is *eakly+ positi)ely related to personal

performance-approach goals+ although it is more strongly related to personal performance-a)oid

goals .hey also found that self-handicapping trends are negati)ely related to task goals as *ell

as to the students& mathematics grade Self-handicapping *as also determined to be positi)ely

correlated to perceptions of a classroom performance goal structure+ *hile negati)ely correlated

to perceptions of a classroom task goal structure 6urther implications of their findings can be

found in the original article+ referenced belo*

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$eferences7

Midgley+ ,+ %rdan+ . 9!!": #cademic Self-(andicapping and #chie)ement ;oals7 #

6urther Eceps!!!"!1"