This study assessed the combined effects of students’ achievement goal orientations (performance-approach goal and mastery-approach goal) and contextual factors (goal structures and task difficulty) on their performance. Researchers first asked 313 junior students about their achievement goal orientations and then randomly assigned them to one of four experimental conditions, all involving task difficulty × goal structure. A previously developed and validated maze task was used to manipulate task difficulty between low and high, and goal structure between performance and mastery. Performance was measured by the time students needed to complete the maze. Results showed three-way interaction between performance-approach goal orientation, task difficulty, and goal structure. Only students in the performance goal structure showed decreased performance (increased time to solve the maze) as task difficulty increased; the decrease was steeper when students had high performance-approach goal orientation. To understand fully their students’ performance, educators should simultaneously pay closer attention to task difficulty, classroom goal structure, and students’ goal orientations.

这项研究评估了学生的成就目标定向（绩效方法目标和掌握方法目标）和情境因素（目标结构和任务难度）的综合影响。研究人员首先向313名初中生询问了他们的成就目标定向，然后将他们随机分配到四个实验条件之一，这些条件都涉及任务难度×目标结构。使用先前开发和验证的迷宫任务来控制任务难度在低到高之间，目标结构在性能和精通之间。表现是根据学生完成迷宫所需的时间来衡量的。结果表明，绩效方法目标定向，任务难度和目标结构之间存在三种相互作用。随着任务难度的增加，只有表现目标结构中的学生表现出下降的表现（解决迷宫的时间增加）；当学生具有高绩效方法目标导向时，下降幅度更大。为了充分了解学生的表现，教育工作者应同时密切注意任务难度，课堂目标结构和学生的目标取向。