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Reasons for Studying: Motivational

Orientations and Study Strategies
Susan Bobbitt Nolen
Published online: 14 Dec 2009.

To cite this article: Susan Bobbitt Nolen (1988) Reasons for Studying: Motivational Orientations and Study
Strategies, Cognition and Instruction, 5:4, 269-287, DOI: 10.1207/s1532690xci0504_2

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s1532690xci0504_2

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 COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION, 1988, 5(4), 269-287
Copyright o 1988, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Reasons for Studying:

Motivational Orientations and Study
Strategies

Susan Bobbitt Nolen

Division of Education and Human Services
Arizona State University, West Campus
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This study explored the relationship among (a) individual differences in three
motivational or goal orientations and (b) valuing and use of study strategies
by eighth graders reading expository passages. Task orientation (the goal of
learning or understanding for its own sake) was positively correlated with
both perceived value and use of strategies requiring deep processing of
information. To a lesser degree, task orientation correlated with valuing and
use of strategies requiring only surface-level processing. Ego orientation (the
goal of demonstrating high ability relative to others) was positively related to
use and perceived value of surface-level strategies only. Work avoidance
(academic alienation) was negatively related to use and valuing of both kinds
of strategies. A path analysis indicated that task orientation, more than
perceived ability or knowledge of the value of deep-processing strategies,
predicts the spontaneous use of these strategies. That the prediction held over
an interval of 4 to 6 weeks suggests the importance of individual differences
in motivational orientation. The findings are discussed in terms of their
implications for strategy training and teaching practice.

Effective use of learning strategies has emerged as a critical variable in

recent models of human learning (Brown, Bransford, Ferrara, &
Campione, 1983; Flavell, 1981; Sternberg & Powell, 1983). The ability t o
select and use learning strategies matched t o the demands of different tasks
is widely thought t o characterize "expert learners." In contrast, less able
students have been characterized as either not having effective strategies in

Requests for reprints should be sent to Susan Bobbitt Nolen, Division of Education and
Human Services, Arizona State University, West Campus, P.O. Box 37100, Phoenix,
AZ 85069-7100.
 270 NOLEN

their repertoires or not choosing to employ them at appropriate times

(Brown et al., 1983; Sternberg & Powell, 1983).
Recently researchers have become interested in determining why students
employ these strategies when studying. Factors that have been suggested as
influential include conditional knowledge of strategy value (Paris & Cross,
1983; Paris, Lipson, & Wixson, 1983; Schunk & Rice, 1987)' self-perceptions
of ability or efficacy (Pintrich, 1987; Schunk & Rice, 1987), and affective
components of motivation such as task value and interest (McKeachie,
Pintrich, & Lin, 1985;Pintrich, 1987; Thomas & Rohwer, 1986)and different
personal goals for studying (Nolen, 1987). Because studying is usually a
student-directed activity, motivational factors are likely to influence stu-
dents' use of study strategies. Accordingly, this study was designed to in-
vestigate the relationships among various motivational factors and sponta-
neous strategy use.
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Many have argued that an understanding of motivation depends on an

understanding of the specific goals toward which individuals are oriented
(Arnes, 1984; Asch, 1952; Crutchfield, 1962; Dweck, 1985; Maehr, 1983;
Maehr & Braskamp, 1986; Nicholls, 1984; Spence & Helmreich, 1983). Two
forms of approach motivation have been proposed in this body of work that
incorporate different achievement goals. Ego involvement involves a desire
for superior performance of a task relative to other people. In contrast, task
involvement implies an interest in performing or doing one's best, without
regard to the performance of others.
Variations on these constructs appear in several current theories of
achievement motivation. Dweck (1985), for example, focused on the nature
of two forms of achievement goal: learning goals (which stress the
development of competence) and performance goals (which stress looking
competent). These goals have different implications for students' ap-
proaches to learning tasks. Specifically, Dweck suggested that children with
learning goals may persist and maintain strategic behavior longer in the face
of failure and may have more-positive affective responses to success and
failure than do their counterparts with performance goals. In addition to
these possible motivational differences, however, different goals may
engender the use of different learning strategies, which may in turn have a
significant influence on the nature of what is learned.
Nicholls and his colleagues (Nicholls, 1984; Nicholls, Patashnick, &
Nolen, 1985), based in part on the work of Asch (1952) and Crutchfield
(1962), have identified three types of motivational orientations toward
school learning that might affect the nature of students' spontaneous
strategy use. Task orientation involves a commitment to learning for its
own sake. The task-oriented person strives to learn or understand, and "the
more individuals feel that they have learned, the more competent they feel"
(Nicholls, 1984, p. 329). In ego orientation, the aim is to perform better
 than others or to establish that one's ability is superior. In this case, learning
or understanding is held to be experienced as a means to an end. Evidence
presented by Nicholls shows these two dimensions to be uncorrelated or
only slightly associated (Nicholls, in press; Nicholls et al., 1985). Thus it is
possible for students to be both ego- and task-involved in a particular
activity. The third motivational orientation, work avoidance, involves a
desire to put forth as little effort as possible and get away with it. Work
avoidance is negatively associated with task orientation.
Nicholls and his colleagues (Nicholls, in press; Nicholls et al., 1985) have
found that students' motivational orientations were consistent with their
beliefs about the causes of success in school. Ego orientation was associated
with a belief that success depends on competitiveness and extrinsic factors
such as impressing the teacher and the teacher's belief in the students' ability
to do well. In contrast, task orientation was correlated with the belief that
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success in school depends on hard work, interest, cooperation, and trying to

understand rather than just memorize things.
These findings, along with much evidence of more adaptive behavior in
task- or learning-oriented situations (Dweck, 1985; Nicholls, 1984), are
consistent with the success of strategy training programs that combined
cognitive training with attribution retraining. Borkowski and others
(Borkowski, 1988; Borkowski, Weyhing, & Carr, 1988; Kurtz & Borkowski,
1984; Short & E. B. Ryan, 1984) have demonstrated that strategy training
can be more durable and transferable if students are also trained to make
effort attributions for success and failure. Because task-oriented students,
unlike ego-oriented students, tend to attribute success in school to effort
and attempts to understand, they may be more likely to use and value
learning strategies that stress understanding, even if these strategies require
more effort than less effective strategies.
The present study extends the work of Nicholls, Dweck, and others by
examining the relationship between student goals or motivational orienta-
tions and their valuing and use of different kinds of study strategies. Two
types of study strategies were distinguished based on the work of Entwhistle
and Ramsden (1983):
1. Deep-processing strategies include discriminating important informa-
tion from unimportant information, trying to figure out how new
information fits with what one already knows, and monitoring
comprehension.
2. Surface-level strategies include simply reading a whole passage over
and over, memorizing all the new words, and rehearsing information.
Deep processing is held to be more likely than surface-level processing to
lead to understanding and retention of meaningful material (Anderson,
1980; Entwhistle & Ramsden, 1983).
 272 NOLEN

The main hypothesis of this study was that students' motivational

orientations influence both their beliefs about the value of strategies and
their strategy selection when engaged in independent study of complex,
meaningful prose. Task orientation was expected to be positively related to
learners' use and perceptions of the value of deep-processing strategies. This
is because, for task-oriented students, understanding is an end in itself
(Condry & Chambers, 1978; Deci & R. Ryan, 1985; Dweck, 1985; Nicholls,
1984). Consistent with this thesis is evidence that task orientation, more
than the other orientations, is associated with the belief that academic
success depends on attempts to understand rather than to just memorize
material (Nicholls et al., 1985). Ego orientation, on the other hand, was
expected to be associated more with valuing and use of surface-level
strategies, which may produce learning sufficient for passing school tests
but which do not require students to make sense of the material. This is
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because ego orientation is held to mean that learning is seen as a means to

superior performance rather than as an end in itself (Deci & R. Ryan, 1985;
Nicholls, 1984). In contrast with these two forms of approach motivation,
work avoidance was expected to be negatively related to the valuing and use
of either kind of strategy.
A second set of hypotheses concerned the roles of perceived strategy
value, motivational orientation, ability, and self-perceptions of ability in
predicting students' spontaneous use of study strategies. Knowledge of the
value of effective learning strategies has been thought to be a crucial
determinant of strategy use (Paris & Cross, 1983; Paris et al., 1983; Schunk
& Rice, 1987). Nolen, Meece, and Blumenfeld (1986), however, found that
when elementary school students knew that strategies involving deep
processing of information were more useful than surface-level strategies,
they did not necessarily choose to use them even when the deep-processing
strategies would, in fact, promote learning. If students are not interested in
understanding for its own sake, knowledge that deep-processing strategies
will lead to increased understanding might not occasion use of those
strategies. It was predicted, therefore, that knowledge of the value of
deep-processing strategies for increasing understanding would be less
predictive of strategy use than task involvement would be.
The prediction of the role of motivational orientation was tested both (a)
with situation-specific measures of task involvement, ego involvement, and
work avoidance, given immediately after studying, and (b) with parallel
general measures of task orientation, ego orientation, and work avoidance
administered 4 to 6 weeks before the learning situation. If task orientation
predicts use of deep-processing strategies over a period of several weeks, the
case for the significance of individual differences in these orientations
would be strengthened. On the other hand, if only the assessment of
 involvement at the time of studying were important, this would suggest the
relative importance of situational variation in motivation.
It is conceivable that a positive correlation between task orientation and
valuing of deep-processing strategies might result from their mutual corre-
lation with ability factors. It has been argued that both students' percep-
tions of their ability or efficacy and the students' actual ability are
important determinants of the use of effective learning strategies (Pintrich,
1987; Schunk & Rice, 1987; Thomas & Rohwer, 1986). Ability probably
influences the effectiveness of these strategies; a great deal of research
indicates that students who are more able have greater strategy repertoires
and more flexibly and efficiently employ these strategies (see Brown et al.,
1983, for a review). However, ability may not be as important in deter-
mining if students would try to use effective strategies. If students know
that a strategy will lead to greater understanding, and if understanding is
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their goal, then they should try to employ that strategy. Motivational
orientation, therefore, was predicted to be a better predictor of reported
strategy use than ability.
Thomas and Rohwer (1986) argued that self-perceptions of low ability are
likely to prevent students from constructing, selecting, or employing
effective study strategies. This is consistent with the claims of Borkowski
and his colleagues (Borkowski, 1988; Borkowski et al., 1988; Kurtz &
Borkowski, 1984) that effort attributions for success and failure promote
the use of learning strategies because students with self-perceptions of low
ability tend to attribute success to luck and failure to lack of ability
(Covington & Beery, 1976). Perceived ability, therefore, might be predicted
to correlate positively with both the use and valuing of effective learning
strategies, which involve expenditure of effort.
There is considerable experimental evidence, however, that the associa-
tion between perceived ability and performance is high when individuals are
ego involved and not when they are task involved (Nicholls, 1984). Elliot
and Dweck (cited in Dweck, 1985) found that, although the performance of
children with performance goals and perceived low ability deteriorated after
failure, the performance of children in situations that favored learning
goals did not, regardless of perceived ability. Further, studies of high school
students (Nicholls et al., 1985), fifth graders, and second graders (Nicholls,
in press) have shown that task orientation is not or is only slightly associated
with perceived ability. Thus, it was predicted that, in the relatively informal
(not ego-involving) climate in which this study was conducted, task
orientation would be a more important predictor of deep-processing
strategy use than would be perceived ability.
Study strategy use is commonly assessed by self report (see, e.g., Ames &
Archer, 1987; McKeachie et al., 1985; Nolen et al., 1986; Pintrich, 1987;
 274 NOLEN

Thomas, Iventosch, & Weiss, 1987). Because the validity of such self-
reports has been called into question (Ericsson & Simon, 1980), an
incidental purpose of this study was to validate a self-report measure of
strategy use by correlating these reports with independent assessments of
those specific strategies (e.g., consulting a reference book) that could be
reliably observed.

METHOD

Participants

Sixty-two eighth graders from three junior high schools in two Midwestern
towns volunteered to participate and obtained parental permission. Ap-
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proximately 400 permission forms were distributed during study periods

+
(required for all students). Reported science grades (with a mean of C and
a standard deviation of approximately one letter grade) and follow-up
conversations with teachers suggested that the sample was adequately
representative of the range of ability present in the schools. Data from 12
students were incomplete due to illness (9 cases), schedule conflict (2 cases),
or moving out of district (1 case). The remaining sample of 50 students was
composed of 29 females and 21 males.

Procedure

In groups of 10 to 15, students filled out the General Motivational

Orientation scales, the General Strategy Value scales, and Perceived Ability
items. (See Measures section for descriptions of these scales.) Sessions were
held during regularly scheduled reading or study periods. At the beginning
of this session, an experimenter explained that she was interested in finding
out how students think and feel about science and, in particular, how they
go about studying their science texts. As the questionnaire booklets were
distributed, she told the students that she was interested in their opinions
and that there were no right or wrong answers to the questions. At the
beginning of each of the three sets of questions, the experimenter read the
directions to the students (directions appeared on the booklets as well). For
the General Strategy Value scales, the experimenter added the following
information:

While you are answering these questions, I would like you to imagine
a particular situation. Imagine that your teacher has assigned a section
in your science book on a topic that you are really interested in. So
 when you study, you're not just studying for a test, but because you
really want to learn and remember the material. ,

Four to 6 weeks later, students met in groups of 4 to 7 in the school

library during their regularly scheduled study period. Prior to the study
session, the experimenter reminded the students that she was interested in
learning about different ways that students learn from what they read.
Students were asked to study "an interesting article from a popular science
magazine" until they felt able to explain their article to someone else in their
own words. She directed the students to study individually in any way they
wished, provided paper on which the students could take notes if they
desired, and pointed out the availability and location of relevant reference
books. No student studied longer than 20 min.
While students studied, the experimenter recorded students' overt
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studying behaviors. Immediately after studying, students completed the

Task-Specific Strategy Use, Task-Specific Strategy Value, and Task-
Specific Motivational State scales, in that order. (Again, see Measures
section for descriptions.) On the following day, students returned to the
library and completed written free and cued recalls of the passages.

Measures

Motivation Scales

General Motivational Orientation scales. Student goals were as-

sessed by having students complete a questionnaire based on the Motiva-
tional Orientation Questionnare (Nicholls et al., 1985). In that study, the
scales comprising the questionnaire were found to be logically related to
students' views about how to achieve success in school, as well as to their
views of the purposes of schooling. For example, task orientation (e.g.,
feeling most successful when learning something new or understanding a
difficult topic) was positively related both to the belief that schools should
teach us to understand the world and to the belief that the students most
likely to succeed in school are those who work hard, try to understand, and
are interested in their schoolwork. In the present study, items from the
questionnaire were reworded to focus students' attention on science class.
Eighteen items reflected three different motivational orientations: task
orientation (e.g., "I feel most successful when I learn something new," "I
feel most successful when I get a new idea about how things work," "I feel
most successful when something I learn makes me want to find out more"),
ego orientation (e.g., "I feel most successful when I do the work better than
other students," "I feel most successful if I show people I'm smart," "I feel
most successful when I score higher than other students"), and work
 avoidance (e.g., "I feel most successful when I get out of some work," "I
feel most successful when all the work was easy," "I feel most successful if
I didn't have to work too hard"). The respective Cronbach alphas for these
scales were .79, .76, and .80 for this sample.

Task-Specific Motivational State scales. On a 5-point Likert scale,

students agreed or disagreed with statements concerning their goals for the
just-completed studying task. Items in each scale were task-relevant adap-
tations of the General Motivational Orientation scales (e.g., for task-
specific task involvement: "How did you feel while you were studying
today? I felt good about learning something new"). Alpha coefficients for
the three subscales were .81 for Task Involvement, .79 for Ego Involve-
ment, and .68 for Work Avoidance.
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Perceived Ability items. Two items asked students to rate their

science-studying ability on 7-point scales. The first item asked, "How good
are you at studying science?" The second item asked students to rate their
ability compared with that of others in their grade (Nicholls et al., 1985).
The Pearson correlation between these two items was .73. Students also
reported their most recent report card grade in science.
Strategy Scales
On the basis of previous studies (Entwhistle & Ramsden, 1983; Nolen et
al., 1986), three sets of scales were constructed to assess valuing and use of
deep-processing strategies (e.g., "try to see how this fits with what I've
learned in class") and surface-level strategies (e.g., "read the whole thing
over and over"). Students were asked about the same strategies on each of
the following three sets of scales.

General Strategy Value scales. Students were asked to imagine

studying a chapter in a science text that concerned a really interesting topic,
a topic about which they personally wanted to learn. For each of the study
strategies, students responded to the statement, "This is a good thing to do
if you really want to learn and remember," on a 5-point Likert scale ranging
from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1). Alpha coefficients were .80
for the Deep-Processing subscale and .57 for the Surface-Level subscale.

Task-Specific Strategy Value scales. At the end of the session,

students indicated on a 5-point Likert scale their agreement with the
statement, "This would be a very helpful thing to do if I had to come back
tomorrow and study a similar passage," for each of the strategies on the list.
Reliability coefficients for the Deep-Processing and Surface-Level subscales
were .88 and .73, respectively.
 Task-Specific Strategy Use scales. Immediately following study,
students were asked to indicate, on a list of the strategies, which (if any)
they had used to study the stimulus passage. Reliability coefficients (alpha)
for strategy use reports were .73 for deep-processing strategies and .53 for
surface-level strategies. Seven of the strategies referred to on the strategy
use scales were readily observable during the study session or from the
students' notes: (a) asking questions; consulting (b) a dictionary or (c) an
encyclopedia; (d) taking notes; (e) outlining, (f) paraphrasing, or (g)
verbatim recording of information from the passage. These were recorded
by the experimenter to provide a check on the validity of the strategy use
scales.

Free and Cued Recall of Passages

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Participants studied one of two prose passages describing recent research in

botany ("The Methuselah Bush," 697 words) or animal biology ("Antler
Answers," 749 words). These passages were adapted from articles appear-
ing in a popular science magazine. In adapting the articles, particular
attention was paid to clarity of paragraph structure, information structure,
and cohesion. Difficult technical vocabulary was left in the revised versions
in order to ensure a level of difficulty sufficient to elicit strategic studying.
For the free recall, the experimenter told students that she was curious
about how much they remembered of the passage they had read and asked
them to write down as many things as they could remember. Each student
was given a sheet of lined paper with the title of his or her article printed
across the top. Students were told that order and spelling were unimportant
and that they could write things down in their own words. After students
had finished writing, the experimenter gave each a set of three questions
about his or her article, questions designed to serve as cues for recall of
main ideas. Questions for the two articles were, "Describe how deer antlers
grow [how creosote bushes spread]," "What kinds of things control antler
growth? [How does this way of growing and spreading help the creosote
bush survive?]," and "What can scientists learn by making deer grow weird
antlers? [learn from old creosote bushes?]." The experimenter explained
that these questions were to help "jog their memory" and that they should
write down the answers (if they had not already written the information
during the free recall) and anything else from the passage that came to
mind.
Prior to their use in this study, passages had been divided into idea units,
and each unit was rated for structural importance using procedures outlined
in Johnson (1970). Ratings for each unit were averaged, and the units for
each passage were divided equally into high-, medium-, and low-importance
 units. Recall protocols were coded for presence or absence of the gist of
each unit. A randomly selected 20% of the protocols were independently
coded by two raters; interrater agreement was 89.6%.

RESULTS

Preliminary Analyses

Preliminary 2 (Sex) x 2 (Passage) analyses of variance were performed on

scores from each scale and on the recall task. Girls were somewhat more
task oriented (mean item response = 3.86 on a 5-point scale) during the task
than were boys (mean item response = 3.32), F(l, 46) = 5.72, p < .05.
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Because no other main effects or interactions involving passage or sex were

TABLE 1
Means and Standard Deviations for Each Scale and
for Free and Cued Recall

Scale M SD

General Motivational Orientation scales

Task Orientation
Ego Orientation
Work Avoidance
Task-Specific Motivational State scales
Task Involvement
Ego Involvement
Work Avoidance
General Strategy Value scales
Deep Processing
Surface Level
Task-Specific Strategy Value scales
Deep Processing
Surface Level
Task-Specific Strategy Use scales
Deep Processinga
Surface Levelb
Total Number of Idea Units Recalled
Antler passage (65 units)
Bush passage (74 units)
a l l items. Forty-nine students reported deep-processing strate-
gies; 9 reported using only deep-processing strategies.
b5 items. Forty students reported using at least one surface-level
strategy; no student reported using only surface-level strategies; 1
student reported using neither.
 significant, data were collapsed across these categories for further analyses.
Means and standard deviations for each scale and for recall data are
reported in Table 1.

Validity of Self-Report of Strategy Use

Validity for the strategy use self-report measure was obtained by comparing
students' responses with observer reports of overt studying behavior (asking
questions, consulting a dictionary or an encyclopedia, taking notes), as well
as by inspecting student notes for evidence of outlining, paraphrasing, or
verbatim recording of information from the passage. For "Copy some
information word-for-word" and "Write some of the information in your
own words," agreement between notes and self-report was 70% and 8 l % ,
respectively. Agreement between behavior and self-report ranged from 89%
to 96% for the remaining five strategies. Because the other strategies
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referred to this scale are covert, it is not possible to check on all aspects of
the measure. Yet results for those cases in which validity checks could be
made suggest the measure has acceptable validity.

Motivation and Strategy Scales

The General Motivational Orientation scales were positively correlated with

their task-specific counterparts; Pearson correlation coefficients ranged
from .29 (p < .05) to .57 ( p < .001), suggesting that general motivational
orientation is a fairly stable trait. As in previous research, general ego and
task orientation were not strongly associated (r = .19, p > .05), which
confirms the importance of separating these two forms of approach
motivation.
Ttests comparing the mean scores of deep-processing versus surface-level
strategies for each set of scales (general and task-specific) showed that
students rated deep-processing strategies as more useful than surface-level
strategies (both ps c .05). Intercorrelations among the six strategy scales
indicated that responses on the surface-level general strategy value scale
were not predictive of strategy use. In contrast, the deep-processing general
strategy value was significantly related to use of deep-processing strategies
(r = .38, p < .01) and not to use of surface-level strategies. This result
supports Paris and Cross's (1983) contention that strategy value knowledge
is a determinant of strategy use.
The correlations among motivational indices, perceived ability, reported
course grades, and the strategy measures are reported in Table 2. Neither
perceived ability nor achievement (course grades) emerged as a significant
correlate of deep-processing strategy use. Perceived ability, but not grades,
was negatively associated with valuing and use of surface-level strategies.
As expected, all significant correlations between Work Avoidance and
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TABLE 2
Correlations Among Motivational Orientation, Perceived Ability and Strategy Scales, and Course Grade

General Orientation Task-Speclfic Motivational State

Reported
Work Work Perceived Course
Strategy Scale Task Ego Avoidance Task Ego Avoidance Ability Grade
Deep Processing
General Value .44*** - .20 - .32* .40*** .06 - .03 - .05 .06
Task-Specific Value .48*** .05 - .23 .68*** .17 - .42*** - .07 .08
Task-Specific Use .31** .03 - .34** .49*** .01 - .39*** .10 .19
Surface Level
General Value .25* .09 .08 .33** .21 .16 - .37** - .23*
Task-Specific Value .29* .00 .06 .59*** .35** - .21 - .21 - .18
Task-Specific Use .19 .13 - .14 .58*** .58*** - .26* - .09 - .27*
Note. n = 50.
* p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < ,001.
 REASONS FOR STUDYING 281

strategy scales were negative. None of the associations involving strategies

and General Ego Orientation was significant. General Task Orientation was
positively related to all deep-processing strategy measures. This is especially
noteworthy for the task-specific use and valuing of deep-processing strate-
gies because the assessment of General Task Orientation occurred 4 to 6
weeks prior to the assessment of strategies. Task-Specific Task Orientation
was positively related to all strategy scales.
Differences between correlations were tested using Williams's T, for
associations with a common index (Steiger, 1980). As expected, General
Task Orientation was more positively related to valuing and use of
deep-processing strategy measures than either Ego Orientation or Work
Avoidance (all ps < .05). The General Ego Orientation and Work
Avoidance scales did not differ significantly in their relationship to
deep-processing scales. The pattern of relationships was similar for the
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Task-Specific Motivational State scales, although task involvement was as

strongly related to surface-level strategies as to deep-processing strategies. It
is important to note that task orientation, significantly more than ego
orientation, predicted the use of deep-processing, but not surface-level,
strategies. In addition, the correlations between Task Orientation and both
deep-processing strategy values scales were significantly greater than those
between Task Orientation and the two surface-level strategy value scales.
These findings confirm the importance of distinguishing these two types of
strategies.

Recall of Passage Information

Although the main question addressed by this investigation concerned the

kinds of strategies students would try to use, not how well the strategies
would be used, the recall data were analyzed for relationships with the
motivation and strategy variables. Total number of ideas recalled (free and
cued recall combined) was low, averaging 11% (6.9 of 65 possible units) for
the animal biology passage and 9% (6.8'of 74 possible units) for the botany
passage. In fact, with the exception of two students, the maximum number
of idea units recalled for either passage was 13, and plots of the distribution
were relatively flat. Low performance and restriction of range suggest that
the passages may have been too difficult for students in this study. Taken
together with the nonnormal distribution, these findings call into question
the meaningfulness of analyses performed on these data.
Consistent with the problems with this recall measure, observed relation-
ships among variables were weak. Product-moment correlations between
motivational orientation scales and recall were not significant. Of the
strategy scales, only task-specific strategy utility scales were significantly
correlated with total recall (Deep-Processing subscale, r = .33; Surface-
 282 NOLEN

Level subscale, r = .34; both ps < .01), as well as with recall of

high-importance units (.24, p < .05; .32, p < .01) and low-importance
units (.32, p < .01; 24, p < .05).

Goals and Strategies: A Path Model

Based on the analysis of zero-order correlations, the variables most likely to

influence the use of deep-processing strategies were entered into a path
analysis in order to explore their relative contributions. In this study, both
task orientation and perceived value of deep-processing strategies were
consistently positively correlated with spontaneous use of those strategies.
However, neither perceived ability nor science grade predicted students' use
of deep-processing strategies (see Table 2). The relationship among the
extent to which a student values a strategy, the student's goals, and the
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decision to use a particular strategy cannot be adequately explained, in this

instance, by ability factors. Therefore, a path analysis was performed to
clarify the possible causal relationships of general task orientation, valuing
of deep-processing strategies, and task-specific task involvement with
deep-processing strategy use. It is not intended to be a complete model of all
factors influencing strategy use but is intended to clarify the relationships
among this subset of variables. The model appears in Figure 1, with the
accompanying table of decomposition in Table 3.
Following procedures outlined in Kim and Kohout (1975) and Pedhazur
(1982), the causal portion of each bivariate correlation was tested for
statistical significance. Inspection of Table 3 reveals patterns consistent
with the hypothesis that the level of general task orientation is a determi-
nant of students' use of deep-processing strategies, above and beyond the
effect of knowledge of the value or utility of these strategies. As previously
noted, task-specific task involvement was strongly related to deep-
processing strategy use. General task orientation appears to influence

General Task-specific
Task .29
Task
Orientation lnvolvement

.40 .49

W W

Perceived FIGURE 1 Path model of the

Use of Deep- influence of motivational orienta-
Deep-Processing- ) processing tion and strategy value knowledge
.I8
Strategy Value Strategies on use of deep-processing strate-
gies. Values are path coefficients.
 TABLE 3
Decomposition of Pearson Correlations Between Elements of Path Model

Causal
Total
Bivariate Relationship Correlation Direct Indirect Total Spurious
General Task Orientation-Task-Specific
Task Involvement .29 .28 none .28* none
General Task Orientation-Perceived
Deep-Processing Strategy Value .40 .40 none .40*** none
General Task Orientation-Deep-Processing
Strategy Use .3 1 .13 .18 .31** none
Task-Specific Task Involvement-Deep-
Processing Strategy Use .49 .39 none .39*** .10
Perceived Deep-Processing Strategy
Value-Deep-Processing Strategy Use .38 .18 none .18 .20
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Note. n = 50.
* p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

deep-processing strategy use both directly and indirectly, with a total causal
correlation of .31 (p < .01).This indirect effect suggests that the influence
of general task orientation on strategy use is mediated both by task-specific
task involvement and by students' opinions of the general usefulness of
these strategies for learning from text. In contrast, the direct effect of
perceived value of deep-processing strategies was not significant.
The model assumes that all paths between variables are causal, with the
exception of that between General Deep-Processing Strategy Value and
Task-Specific Task Involvement. It is conceivable that knowing the value of
deep-processing strategies may have led to their use in the interval between
administration of general and task-specific measures. If this resulted in
increased understanding of scientific topics, it might have increased stu-
dents' task involvement during the study session, during which they had the
opportunity to employ these strategies and thus increase their under-
standing of the passages. If this were true, however, one would also expect
a significant direct effect of general perceived strategy value on the use of
these strategies during the studying task. The lack of such a direct effect
suggests that the correlation between task involvement and perceived
strategy value is largely due to their common relationship with general task
orientation.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationships among

motivation, knowledge of strategy value, and spontaneous strategy use.
 Factors associated with the use of deep-processing strategies were of
particular interest because they are thought to lead to increased under-
standing of expository text (Anderson, 1980; Entwhistle & Ramsden, 1983).
(Unfortunately, problems with the recall measure prevented adequate
exploration of the impact of strategies on learning in this study.)
Rarely have training studies looked for and found evidence of sponta-
neous application of learned strategies outside the context of the training.
Motivation to use these strategies is a potentially important variable that
has not been addressed. One would expect that those who are motivated to
study would have patterns of studying behavior and beliefs about the utility
of study strategies that are different from those of academically alienated,
work-avoidant students. What was not clear at the outset of this study was
the role that the students' reason for studying- the nature of their approach
motivation-might play in their spontaneous choice of study strategies.
Because there are many reasons that a teacher might stress for studying, it
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is important to understand the potential effects of these reasons on students'

studying behaviors.
As predicted, deep-processing but not surface-level strategy use was
associated with task (but not ego) orientation. Both general task orientation
and task-specific task involvement were consistently related to the valuing
and use of deep-processing strategies. Although the state of task involve-
ment was more strongly related to use of deep-processing strategies, general
task orientation was also a significant predictor, both directly and as
mediated by task-specific involvement and perceived strategy value. That
this relationship held over a period of 4 to 6 weeks indicates the importance
of individual differences in motivational orientation.
The zero-order correlations are consistent with Paris and Cross's (1983)
claim that the use of the effective strategies depends in part on students'
conditional knowledge of the value of these strategies. In the path analysis,
however, perceived strategy value was not a strong direct predictor of
strategy use. Although students in this sample appeared to know that
deep-processing strategies are more useful than surface-level strategies and
that deep-processing strategies are effective in promoting learning, it seems
that this knowledge leads to their spontaneous use only when combined
with an interest in understanding characteristic of task involvement.
Ego orientation, in which learning is a means to the end of superior
performance, was not associated with the use or valuing of deep-processing
strategies. This casts considerable doubt on the efficacy of emphasizing the
use of strategies in order to obtain high test scores and course grades as a
means of encouraging strategy use. Indeed, McKeachie et al. (1985)
suggested that such an emphasis by instructors in their study may have
contributed to the lack of a strong positive effect of a strategy training
course on college students' reported use of effective strategies.
 The results reported here raise the possibility that modification of
students' goals for studying may have contributed to the success of some
interactive strategy training programs (e.g., Palincsar, 1986; Palincsar &
Brown, 1984; Paris, Cross, & Lipson, 1984). Successful teachers in
Palincsar's (1986) training study, for example, stressed the goal of under-
standing to their pupils. It seems likely that students (at least in interactive
programs such as Palincsar's) could be influenced to adopt this goal as well
and that they would then continue to spontaneously employ strategies
leading to understanding. Future strategy training studies should be de-
signed to include measurement (and possibly manipulation) of individual
goals for learning so that their effect on spontaneous application of trained
strategies, and thus on learning, can be assessed.
Finally, if our goal as educators is to encourage the acquisition of
meaning rather than rote memorization, the results of this study suggest
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that fostering ego involvement through competition for grades or teacher

recognition might not be the best approach. It seems instead that, as several
authors have argued (Condry & Chambers, 1978; Deci & R. Ryan, 1985;
Dweck, 1985; Maehr, 1983; Nicholls, 1984), we might do well to explore
ways to encourage students to value learning for its own sake. Perhaps only
then will our efforts to teach students effective learning strategies be met
with a desire to learn and use them.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Early work on this project was supported in part by a David Ross

dissertation grant from Purdue University.
This study was based on a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the doctor of philosophy degree at Purdue University.
I thank Ronald Johnson, Ronnie Wilbur, William Asher, Tom
Haladyna, Mary Lee Smith, and, most especially, John Nicholls for their
comments on earlier drafts of this article.

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