p. 63

"Research suggests that avoidance of challenge may be related to motives and goals in somewhat complex ways. Elliott and Dweck (1988), in an experimental study, found that when children were oriented toward mastery goals they were more likely to choose tasks described as challenging and offering opportunities to learn, regardless of their level of perceived ability. But when students were oriented toward performance goals, they chose challenging tasks that served to enhance others' high opinions of their abilities only if they perceived their ability to be high. Children who perceived their ability to be low and were oriented toward performance goals, in contrast, tended to choose tasks described as easy but that would avoid unfavourable judgments of their ability. Some students may feel they are in a double-bind, preferring easy work that does not threaten their self-worth, yet taking on difficult tasks in order to demonstrate their competence or superiority... Elliot and Church (1997) found that performance-approach goals were positively associated with measures of both challenge-avoidance (fear of failure) and challence-seeking motives (achievement motivation). Avoidance of challenge, then appears, to be positively associated with performance-avoidance goals and negatively related with matery goals, but may have a more complex relationship with performance-approach goals."

In other words, the goal has to be to focus teaching and evaluation on the inculcation of mastery goals and the avoidance of situations in which students are encouraged to engage in performance-avoidance. Once they start engaging in performance avoidance, they then stop seeing challenge.

p. 72

"...when students self-handicap, cheat, fail to seek help when they need it, and avoid the types of challenging and novel academic tasks that produce real learning, they are undermining their own learning and development. Over time, such behavior can produce a self-perpetuating cycle of academic failure and increased avoidance (Zuckerman, Kieffer, and Knee 1998)."

pp. 70-71

• Gheen and Midgley 1999 looked at classroom practices of sharing information about student work:
• Where work was shared to "see who got the right answer" (relative ability purposes) and
• to "get hints for when you have difficulty" (acquiring information purposes"

No surprise:

"They found that students' perceptions of the goal structure related to avoidance of novelty and challenge. When students perceived that their classrooms emphasized mastery goals, they reported lower levels of avoidance, but when they perceived their classrooms emphasized performance goals, they were more lilely to say that thei preferred to avoid novel and challenging work."

Urdan, Tim, Allison M. Ryan, Eric M. Anderman, and Margaret H. Gheen. 2002. “Goals, Goal Stuctures, and Avoidance Behaviours.” In Goals, Goal Structures, and Patterns of Adaptive Learning, edited by C. Midgley, 55–85. Taylor & Francis.

Looks at four behaviours associated with performance avoidance: self-handicapping, avoidance of help seeking, preference for avoiding novelty, and cheating

When students achieved low grades, a performance approach goal was related to decreased intrinsic value and increased desire to avoid challenge.

Performance avoidance is bad; performance approach motivation may be good.

Survey questions on preference to avoid challenging work

Performance approach goals are beneficial for achievement and do not affect motivation negatively, as opposed to performance-avoidance goals.

Mastery goals are positively associated with "self-efficacy, challenge-seeking, and intrinsic value"; performance avoidance goals are negatively associated with these same values.

Performance-approach goals focus on gaining a favourable judgement;

Performance-avoidance goal concerns a focus on avoiding negative judgements.