What are the three types of goal orientations? How do they differ? Which type is generally more effective?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

According to the text about types of goal orientation and how they differ:

People with a learning goal orientation are eager to learn new tasks and are willing to try challenging tasks that take some time to master. People with this orientation understand that when they learn new tasks they will make mistakes; they view these mistakes as learning opportunities, and they are not embarrassed by the mistakes. They recognize that while learning a new task they will not be as accomplished at performing the task as a more experienced person would be. When playing a sport or game, people with a learning orientation often seek to play better players as a way to learn from their opponents and improve their own skills.
In contrast, people with a performance goal orientation focus more on the end result and on achieving the goal than on learning and development. There are two main types of performance goal orientations: prove and avoid. People with a prove goal orientation seek to demonstrate their competence to others by achieving goals and by doing tasks that they are good at performing. Employees with a prove goal orientation may work hard at tasks they already know how to do. However, they may be reluctant to try new tasks or projects. In their efforts to impress others with their productivity, they may also try to start producing before they have fully learned the best and most efficient ways to proceed. When playing sports or games, people with this orientation may prefer to play people they can beat. People with an avoid goal orientation want to avoid any tasks that might cause others to question their competence; because they worry about making mistakes in front of others, they are not eager to attempt activities they have not already mastered. Consistent with this perspective, a study found that people with an avoid goal orientation were less likely to pick challenging tasks during an assessment center exercise and instead picked simple tasks to perform (De Pater et al., 2009). This has important implications for career success because the study also found that performing the complex tasks increased perceptions of competency for career advancement.
Answer about which is more productive: Leaders may want to encourage employees to adopt a learning goal orientation because a learning goal orientation often results in higher performance than either of the two performance goal orientations; this is especially true when the employees perform complex work and need to search for information. For example, one study found that a specific learning goal produced better results than specific performance goals (Seijts et al., 2004).