We studied how specific motivational processes are related to the salience of mastery and performance goals in actual classroom settings. One hundred seventy-six students attending a junior high/high school for academically advanced students were randomly selected from one of their classes and responded to a questionnaire on their perceptions of the classroom goal orientation, use of effective learning strategies, task choices, attitudes, and causal attributions. Students who perceived an emphasis on mastery goals in the classroom reported using more effective strategies, preferred challenging tasks, had a more positive attitude toward the class, and had a stronger belief that success follows from one's effort. Students who perceived performance goals as salient tended to focus on their ability, evaluating their ability negatively and attributing failure to lack of ability. The pattern and strength of the findings suggest that the classroom goal orientation may facilitate the maintenance of adaptive motivation patterns when mastery goals are salient and are adopted by students.

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We studied the achievement goals of mothers in relation to their interpretation of school success, preferences for certain types of school feedback, task choices, causal attributions, and valuing of certain personal characteristics in their children. Over 500 mothers of children in kindergarten through fifth grade were surveyed. Mothers' preferences for mastery versus performance-based achievement goals were differentiated in terms of the priority mothers gave to the demonstration of effort versus high performance as desired student outcomes. The findings showed that mothers' views about the nature of learning in schools can be differentiated according to their achievement goal emphasis. Mastery and performance goals involved different beliefs about how learning occurs, how it is fostered, how it is evidenced, and how it should be evaluated. The findings suggest that children of mothers with different achievement goals may be encouraged to pursue different types of achievement activities, may be evaluated on different aspects of their behavior, and may experience different types of expectations. Moreover, the findings suggest that a performance goal priority may have especially negative consequences for those children who have doubts about their ability or who do not compare favorably with others.Recent analyses of achievement motivation have focused on the goal-directed nature of behavior and have suggested that achievement goals serve to organize a range of achievement-related beliefs and guide subsequent decision-making and behavior (

Liana growth following forest disturbance is threatening the tropical carbon sink by delaying or preventing recovery. Tree growth can be stimulated by liana cutting; however, its applicability for conservation management remains uncertain, particularly in Africa (the least‐studied continent for ecological restoration) and against pervasive barriers such as wildfires. We conducted a small‐scale trial to investigate tree sapling regeneration following liana cutting in a lowland African forest prone to low intensity wildfires. We employed a BACI design comprising eighteen 25 m2 plots of sapling trees in liana‐infested areas. After 5 years of liana cutting, we saw greater recruitment, stem growth and net biomass. Wildfires caused 51% mortality and probably masked liana cutting influences on species and survival, but may have encouraged stem recruitment through interaction with liana cutting. Incorporating our data into a first quantitative review of previous studies, we found that tree growth, recruitment and net growth rates were all consistently higher where lianas were either absent or removed (respectively: 80%, 215%, 633%; n = 14, 3, 4). Tree growth impacts were approximately equivalent across size‐classes and continents. We give recommendations for improved plot and sample sizes, but conclude that liana cutting is a promising restoration method for lowland tropical forests, including Africa.