Emeryetal 2018

The Journal of Experimental Education
ISSN: 0022-0973 (Print) 1940-0683 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjxe20
When Mastery Goals Meet Mastery Learning:

Administrator, Teacher, and Student Perceptions
Alyssa Emery, Megan Sanders, Lynley H. Anderman & Shirley L. Yu
To cite this article: Alyssa Emery, Megan Sanders, Lynley H. Anderman & Shirley L. Yu (2018)
When Mastery Goals Meet Mastery Learning: Administrator, Teacher, and Student Perceptions,
The Journal of Experimental Education, 86:3, 419-441, DOI: 10.1080/00220973.2017.1341863
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2017.1341863
Published online: 06 Jul 2017.
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THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION
2018, VOL. 86, NO. 3, 419–441
https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2017.1341863
MOTIVATION AND SOCIAL PROCESSES
When Mastery Goals Meet Mastery Learning: Administrator,

Teacher, and Student Perceptions
Alyssa Emerya, Megan Sandersb, Lynley H. Andermanc, and Shirley L. Yuc
a
Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH, USA; bColorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, USA; cOhio State University,
Columbus OH, USA
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Few studies have examined the impact of mastery learning on mastery goal Goal structures; goal theory;
structures or even on students’ motivation more generally. In this study, we mastery learning; middle
examined one middle school that implemented a schoolwide mastery school; qualitative inquiry
learning system, conducting interviews with a sample of administrators (n D
3), teachers (n D 4), and students (n D 9) to determine how the system was
envisioned by the school leadership, implemented by the teaching staff, and
perceived by the students. We used deductive qualitative analysis (DQA) to
determine visions, practices, and perceptions aligned with achievement goal
theory. Results indicated that evaluation practices have the greatest potential
to undermine other positive motivational impacts of mastery learning–based
instruction. Implications and transferability for research and practice are
discussed.
When mastery goals meet mastery learning: Administrator, teacher, and student
perceptions
WITHIN THE EDUCATIONAL psychology literature, the concept of mastery appears in multiple the-
oretical frameworks. In one instance, Carroll (1963) and later Bloom (1968, 1971) describe mastery
learning as an approach to instruction and assessment in which students are evaluated on a fixed stan-
dard rather than relative to their peers, with additional time, instruction, and learning opportunities
provided to help students achieve the standard if they did not master it the first time. Mastery also
appears within the context of achievement goal theory of motivation (Ames, 1992a; Anderman & Wol-
ters, 2006; Senko, Hulleman, & Harackiewicz, 2011). In this framework, classroom goal structures are
teacher practices that send a message to students about the purpose of learning, and mastery-oriented
classroom goal structures communicate to students that the goal is to improve competence and master
skills (Ames, 1992a; Anderman & Wolters, 2006; Meece, Anderman, & Anderman, 2006). Although
these conceptions of mastery derive from different theoretical frameworks, Guskey and Anderman
(2013) argue that the two are not incompatible with each other. Indeed, it is easy to imagine how a
school-level–mastery learning system could support mastery-oriented–classroom goal structures.
However, there has been little empirical work exploring the impact of mastery-learning approaches on
goal structures, or even on school-level goal structures in general (cf., Maehr & Midgley, 1996). In this
study, we examine the motivational climate of a school implementing a mastery-learning-and-assess-
ment system to better understand the extent to which mastery learning can promote mastery goal
structures. To do so, we first examined how the concept of mastery was envisioned and communicated
by administrators, subsequently, understood and practiced by teachers and perceived by students.
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
CONTACT Alyssa Emery a-emery@onu.edu 525 S Main St, Ada, OH 45810.
Those interested in reading more about the frequency of code co-occurrence should contact the corresponding author.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
420 A. EMERY ET AL.
Next, we examined whether the school’s structures align with recommendations made by Carol Ames
(1992a) and others (e.g., Patrick, Anderman, Ryan, Midgley, & Edelin, 2001) for creating environments
optimal for the development of mastery goals.
Mastery learning
Bloom (1968, 1971, 1974) developed the mastery-learning approach in response to what he saw as a
significant problem with a pervasive educational practice: grading on a curve. Bloom drew on the ideas
of Carroll (1963), who argued that aptitude and time required to learn material were negatively corre-
lated. Thus, providing all students with the same amount of time and the same instruction, as is typically
the case in many classrooms, would result in a distribution of student achievement that reproduced the
distribution of students’ initial aptitudes—in other words, a normal curve. If individual students were
instead provided with the time they needed to learn the material, Carroll reasoned, most students should
be able to eventually master the material. This distinction between fixing time and fixing a standard level
of achievement is the driving feature of mastery learning. Building on this observation, Bloom (1968,
1971, 1974) developed a number of concrete practices that would support mastery learning. First,
teachers must be explicit about what skills and knowledge constitute mastery of particular course mate-
rial. Bloom (1968) left it to teachers to determine this standard but suggested that the grade of A is an
appropriate index of mastery. Next, students should be given frequent formative assessments to
determine whether they have mastered particular course content (Bloom, 1968, 1971). These assessments
should pinpoint exactly what content a student has failed to master. Students who have not achieved
mastery should be given both specific “correctives,” such as alternative resources for learning the material
or additional practice, and time to learn the material before completing a second formative evaluation
over the same course content (Bloom, 1968, 1971, 1974; Guskey, 2010). Students who achieved mastery
the first time and do not need to complete correctives should instead be given enrichment activities that
go beyond the basic coursework (Guskey, 2007, 2010). Taken together, Bloom argued, these practices
would make it possible for the vast majority of students to master the course material.
Several years of work lend empirical support to the effectiveness of Bloom’s (1968, 1971, 1974)
model. In initial studies, for example, Bloom and his doctoral students (Anania, 1982; Bloom, 1984;
Burke, 1983) compared conventional and mastery-learning–teaching methods in four samples of stu-
dents from different grades and in different subjects. They found the predicted distributions of student
achievement: a distribution similar to a normal curve for students taught using the conventional
approach and a narrower distribution, one standard deviation above the conventional group’s mean,
for students taught using mastery learning.
These and many other studies of mastery-learning systems have been synthesized in two seminal
meta-analyses. Guskey and Pigott (1988) used a sample of 46 classroom studies and found that mastery
learning had a consistent positive impact on achievement, particularly for younger students. Mastery
learning was also found to have a positive but less strong impact on student “affect,” but this reflected
measures ranging from attributions to academic self-concept to the perceived importance of the subject
(Guskey & Pigott). A second, larger meta-analysis (Kulik, Kulik, & Bangert-Downs, 1990) included 108
controlled studies of two types of mastery-learning systems, 36 of which aligned with Bloom’s frame-
work (1968, 1971, 1974). Mastery learning in general had a moderate positive impact on achievement
with an overall effect size of 0.52. Furthermore, in the 103 studies that included a measure of students’
final exam scores, students scored higher in the mastery-learning condition in 93% (96) of them, and
in 70% of these studies (67) the difference was significant (Kulik et al., 1990). Additionally, in studies
that included such measures, students felt positively about the pedagogical approach in 16 of 18 studies
and felt positively toward the course subject in 12 of 14 studies. Taken together, then, this body of work
suggests that mastery-learning approaches have a positive impact on student achievement.
It is less clear what impact mastery learning may have on student motivation. This represents a sig-
nificant gap, because learning cannot be well understood without also understanding motivation
(Anderman & Wolters, 2006; Gilbert et al., 2014). Although some studies included in the two meta-
analyses did include measures of affect and positive feelings toward the instructional method and
THE JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL EDUCATION 421
subject, generally these were poor proxies for student motivation. Goal theory (Ames, 1992a; Elliot &
McGregor, 2001; Meece et al., 2006), however, also has an explicit focus on content mastery and, as
such, seems well-suited for exploring the motivational impact of this pedagogical approach.
Achievement goals and goal structures

Achievement goal orientations represent how students perceive, approach, and respond to situa-
tions that involve achievement (Ames, 1992a, 1992b; Elliot & McGregor, 2001; Senko et al.,
2011). Research supports two types of achievement goals, mastery and performance, each with
two valences, approach and avoidance. Mastery goals refer to the goals of improving understand-
ing and abilities (mastery approach) or avoiding a lack of improvement (mastery avoidance). Per-
formance goals refer to demonstrating competence (performance approach) or avoiding the
demonstration of a lack of competence (performance avoidance). Both mastery-avoidance and
performance-avoidance goals are associated with maladaptive outcomes, including self-handicap-
ping, learned helplessness, disengagement, and cheating (e.g., Linnenbrink, 2005; Urdan, Midgley,
& Anderman, 1998; Urdan, Ryan, Anderman, & Gheen, 2002). In contrast, mastery-approach
goals are associated with adaptive academic outcomes, including help seeking, deep-strategy use,
persistence, and sometimes achievement (Grant & Dweck, 2003; Karabenick, 2004; Senko et al.).
There is mixed evidence regarding the outcomes of performance-approach goals, suggesting that
these goals can be helpful for some students in some contexts (Darnon, Harackiewicz, Butera,
Mugny, & Quiamzade, 2007; Senko et al.).
Students’ personal goal orientations have been consistently linked with their perceptions of
classroom goal structures that emphasize mastery or performance goals (e.g., Anderman et al., 2001;
Kaplan, Gheen, & Midgley, 2002; Meece et al., 2006). Goal structures are conveyed through the instruc-
tional practices students experience, the messages they hear from teachers, students’ perceptions of
their teachers’ beliefs, and whether the students’ perceptions of teachers’ beliefs and teachers’ beliefs
align. The acronym TARGET is one framework for conceptualizing practices that constitute classroom
goal structures (Ames, 1992a; Patrick, Anderman, Ryan, Midgley, & Edelin, 2001). Ames suggested
that teachers’ approaches to tasks, authority, recognition, grouping, evaluation, and the use of time can
communicate an emphasis on either mastery or performance goals. More recently, some goal theorists
have suggested that social support in the classroom are an additional dimension related to students’
perceptions of classroom goal structure; hence TARGETS (e.g., Anderman, Patrick, Hruda, & Linnen-
brink, 2002; Patrick, 2004; Patrick, Anderman, & Ryan, 2002).
Observational studies have identified teacher practices and communication that seem associ-
ated with both students’ perceptions of classroom goal structures and their personal goal orienta-
tions. Based on direct classroom observations, Patrick and colleagues (2001) found that fifth-
grade teachers who were perceived by their students as promoting a mastery-goal structure
planned for full and equitable participation in learning activities, emphasized effort and encour-
aged peer interaction around tasks. In contrast, those perceived as promoting a performance-goal
structure emphasized assessments, grades, and students’ relative performance. These differences
were evident in both teachers’ instructional behaviors and, especially, in their explicit statements
to students. Similarly, Meece (1991) found that science teachers who adapted instruction to stu-
dents’ individual needs and interests, encouraged peer collaboration, and spoke to their students
about the importance of deep understanding of context were more likely to have students who
endorsed personal-mastery goals. However, instructional practices per se are less influential than
students’ perceptions of their teachers’ attitudes and expectations (Marshall & Weinstein, 1986;
Urdan, 2004). For example, Gilbert et al. (2014) reported that students who perceived that their
teachers believed they were capable of learning were more likely to endorse mastery-goal orienta-
tions. In contrast, students who perceived that their teacher did not believe they were capable of
understanding were more likely to endorse performance goal orientations. Therefore, students’
perceptions of their teachers’ practices, statements, and beliefs shape their interpretation of class-
room goal structures.
422 A. EMERY ET AL.
School-level–goal-structure research
To date, research examining the implementation of mastery goal structures beyond individual class-
rooms to entire schools has been very limited. One notable exception was conducted by Maehr and
Midgley (1991, 1996), who explicitly utilized goal-orientation theory and the TARGET framework to
guide their intervention in one elementary and one middle school. The intervention aimed to help the
schools implement mastery-goal structures; for instance, in relation to tasks, the researchers asked
schools to avoid reinforcing simple attendance and to develop programs that supported self-regulation
strategies (p. 410). Despite structures put in place to support the participating schools, however, this
intervention struggled to take hold, in part, because of some teachers’ reaction to what they perceived
to be a “top-down” approach to the intervention (Maehr & Midgley, 1996).
Present study
Although it is rare for a school to explicitly implement mastery-goal structures (see Maehr &
Midgley, 1996), the range of prior research on mastery learning (Guskey & Pigott, 1988; Kulik et
al., 1990) suggests that examples of school-level–mastery-learning systems are more common.
Furthermore, although mastery learning has a different theoretical origin than achievement-goal
theory, the underlying pedagogical practices of mastery learning are not antithetical to mastery-
goal structures (Guskey & Anderman, 2013). Assessing students against a fixed standard rather
than relative to one another, providing formative feedback, and providing students with the time
and resources to master material (Bloom, 1968, 1971; Guskey, 2010) are all consistent with com-
municating an emphasis on learning and development. As such, schools implementing mastery-
learning systems may afford the opportunity both to empirically explore goal structures at the
school level and to examine the impact of mastery learning on goal structures. Millennium
School (pseudonym) is one such school. Thus, this study compared how school practices were
envisioned and communicated by administrators; subsequently, understood and implemented by
teachers in their practice; and ultimately, perceived by students at Millennium School to examine
the motivational environment in light of this mastery-learning approach and to expand the
research on school-level–goal structures.
Method
Because the overarching purpose of the study was to establish a deeper understanding of Millennium
School’s structures from the perspectives of administrators, teachers, and students, we utilized a deduc-
tive-qualitative-analysis (DQA) approach (Gilgun, 2013) in analyzing data collected from participants
in semi-structured interviews. These interviews were part of a larger, multiple-methods study of the
school.
Millennium School
Situated on a research-intensive university campus in a large Midwestern city, Millennium School is a
public school that enrolls by lottery but requires that at least 50% of the student population come from
the urban school district in which the school is located. The remaining positions are open to students
in 13 suburban districts. Millennium School is considered to be high performing according to the
state’s Department of Education criteria and boasts a 100% graduation rate, with nearly all students
enrolling in college after graduation. The school’s formal mission statement focuses on offering stu-
dents a highly personalized learning environment that emphasizes rigorous academic content, with a
particular emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects.
During the 2014 academic year, when the study took place, the student population was 53% White,
28% Black, 8% Asian, and 8% bi- or multiracial. Approximately 30% of the students qualified for free
or reduced-price lunch and about 13% required Individualized Education Plans or special education
services. The school did not provide data regarding the number of students identified as gifted and
talented by state standards, although several teachers and administrators suggested that because of Mil-
lennium School’s reputation, students with a particular affinity for STEM subjects, or learning, more
broadly, are among the greatest number of those who apply.
Millennium School is also distinctive in implementing structures that support a mastery-learning
system, derived from Bloom (1968, 1971) across the entire school level. This approach to learning and
assessment is intended to support deep engagement with content, which is evidenced by earning 90%
or higher on all assignments, tests, and courses. This threshold is an index of mastery in line with
Bloom’s (1968) recommendations. If students do not meet this threshold, they are required to partici-
pate in some form of remediation, which often includes attending after-school office hours with the
assigning teacher, completing similar assignments, or correcting the mistakes made on the original
work. Students can remediate portions of tests or classwork during the semester, but if they earn a
course grade below 90%, they must retake the course the following term, potentially multiple times,
until they earn 90% overall. Accordingly, grades are assigned as either “A” or “Work-In-Progress.”
Numbers of attempts-to-mastery are not counted in students’ school records, and it is expected that
every student will have to remediate courses and assignments.
Additionally, Millennium School partners with the local research university and community college
to offer students the opportunity to take college coursework, which students may begin as early as 11th
grade. To support students in taking advantage of this opportunity, Millennium School operates on an
accelerated course-pacing-and-sequencing schedule, which involves completing classes during a 15-
week semester rather than over the course of a 9-month academic year. There are two semesters in the
school’s academic year, with one 5-week minimester in between, and some summer programming for
remediation. This accelerated pace is designed to provide students the flexibility to advance through
coursework quickly or spend more time in subjects in which they need support.
In 2013, Millennium School launched a middle school characterized by the same mastery system
and accelerated course schedule, with 75 students in grades 6 through 8 in a separate wing of the same
facility. Some middle-schoolers take classes (e.g., trigonometry) alongside high school students, but
other courses (e.g., chemistry) are offered at both middle and high school levels. This study focused
exclusively on Millennium School’s addition of the middle school program.
Participants and procedure

The current analyses focus on semistructured interviews conducted with administrators (n D 3), mid-
dle school teachers (n D 4), and middle school students (n D 9). Students were purposively selected for
interviews based on their responses to one open-ended item, “Tell us anything you would like us to
know about being a student at [Millennium School],” from a survey conducted as part of the larger
study. We selected a subsample of student participants whose responses represented a broad range of
positive and negative opinions about the school and who, as a group, were representative of the
schools’ demographic breakdown as described above. Semistructured interviews were designed to tap
into components of the TARGETS framework (see Appendix for interview protocols) conducted by
trained members of the research team, audiotaped, and transcribed. Table 1 provides a list of the pseu-
donyms assigned to each participant represented in this study. For clarity, we assigned common Amer-
ican surnames that begin with the letter “A” for administrators, used “T” surnames for teachers, and
first names for students.
Data analysis
Data condensing and coding
Interview transcripts were analyzed using a deductive qualitative analysis (DQA) approach, as our
research questions were guided by extant theory (e.g., Gilgun, 2004, 2013). DQA is a relatively recent
approach to qualitative inquiry, however, its roots are in analytic induction, which strives to modify or
undermine existing theory by actively seeking new evidence (Gilgun, 2004; Popper, 1969). Regarding
qualitative inquiry, there is some misconception that analyses should take the approach of grounded
424 A. EMERY ET AL.
Table 1. Overview of participants.
Demographic Information
Years of Experience/
Pseudonym Role Gender Race Student Grade Level
Ms. Anderson Lead Principal F Black 11 years

Ms. Adams Middle School Principal F White 8 years
Mr. Armstrong School Vice Principal M White 6 years
Ms. Taylor Middle School Math F White 1 year
Mr. Thompson Middle School Science M White 23 years
Ms. Tinsley Middle School Science/Math F Hispanic 6 years
Mr. Troy Government Teacher/Dean M White 7 years
Abigail Student F White Grade 7
Bridget Student F White Grade 8
Cathy Student F Asian Grade 8
Dennis Student M White Grade 6
Eddie Student M Multiracial Grade 6
Fiona Student F White Grade 7
Gloria Student F White Grade 6
Holly Student F Black Grade 8
Isaac Student M White Grade 7
theory (e.g., seminal work by Glaser & Strauss, 1967), which eschews extant models entirely, construct-
ing theory only from the data corpus. This misconception may have developed in part because
grounded theory is frequently the most appropriate approach for the kinds of research questions often
asked in qualitative work. Using approaches such as DQA, however, can be an effective way to explore
and test established theory, by using multiple perspectives and extreme cases to closely examine the
ways that “real life” maps on to scholarly literature. To date, DQA has been developed and utilized pri-
marily by researchers in the field of social work. In this approach, a variety of cases are analyzed to
highlight patterns among the data rather than to develop a central theory. As such, DQA can serve to
add dimension to extant models and concepts.
In analyzing the connections between mastery-learning and mastery-achievement goals at Mil-
lennium School, DQA was appropriate because the school designed and implemented structures
that are aligned with Bloom’s (1968, 1971) mastery-learning theory. We used the components of
TARGETS, derived from goal theories of motivation (e.g., Patrick et al., 2001) as sensitizing con-
cepts, serving as the lens to examine those mastery learning structures within the school (e.g.,
Gilgun, 2010; Glaser, 1978). With these sensitizing concepts, DQA allowed us to conduct a nega-
tive case analysis, reviewing the data to examine the ways in which the experiences of the partici-
pants aligned—and, importantly, did not align—with the theoretical frames of mastery learning
and mastery goals. Negative case analysis was accomplished in part by using purposive sampling
of students who held a range of positive and negative opinions about the school and by our
inclusion of administrators and teachers, all of whom had varying degrees of experience with
education, broadly, and at the school, specifically. In this way, we ensured that our sample
included a wide variety of perspectives. Thus, DQA affords insights into a distinctive learning
context, while also framing Millennium School within existing bodies of literature, highlighting
what may be similar and different in ways that can expand the field.
To begin, the first and second authors generated a priori: (1) expected or predicted practices, behav-
iors, or beliefs generated from the empirical literatures on classroom goal structures (e.g., “help seek-
ing,” “self-regulation,” etc.) and Bloom’s mastery learning structures (e.g., “diagnosing individual
learning needs,” “feedback and correctives,” etc.) alongside (2) a set of codes for each component of
the TARGETS framework (e.g., “tasks,” “authority,” etc.) and codes for mastery and performance goals
(Ames, 1992a; Anderman et al., 2002). Data were coded line by line in Dedoose version 7.0.23.
Responses were coded to indicate, first, the mastery learning structure and/or the dimension of TAR-
GETS from which the prompting question was derived; second, to which dimension(s) of TARGETS
the participant’s response was aligned; and finally, whether the data corresponded to practices
associated with mastery- or performance-goal structures in prior literature. The following is an exam-
ple from a teacher interview:
Researcher: So, what sorts of structures are in place at [Millennium School] to recognize student success?
Mr. Jefferson: I guess just individually in classes, you know, try to recognize kids.
Researcher: How so? Like, what does that sound like?
Mr. Jefferson: Oh, like, I guess I’ll just individually say, "hey, you did a great job on this test," or whatever … I
would always, like, give a little prize to the person who got the top score on the test or something. And I like doing
that; I think it is a neat thing for kids to be recognized in front of their peers for doing well. Even if it embarrasses
them.
This exchange was coded first as corresponding to recognition, within the TARGETS framework,
and was secondarily coded as evaluation, because the teacher explicitly stated that tests triggered the
recognition. Finally, the practice was coded as performance goal, both because this teacher recognizes
students who score the highest on tests and because the recognition is provided publicly rather than
privately. Studies suggest that broadcasted evaluations of success, especially those that make clear a stu-
dent’s standing relative to peers, is related to performance-oriented perceptions among students (Pat-
rick et al., 2001). Coding in this manner made evident the links between the components of TARGETS
themselves (as in the case of the above example, between recognition and evaluation) and the links
between TARGETS and mastery-learning structures designed and implemented by the school. Further,
our coding evolved into patterns, which we compared against expected behaviors for either mastery-
or performance-goal structures. In the given example, the codes do not suggest whether students actu-
ally perceived a performance-goal environment. Instead, the codes serve to locate this specific practice
within an existing body of empirical literature.
Reliability and validity

The approach to analysis was designed to maximize reliability. The first and second authors first coded
10% of the data together to establish and verify the coding scheme. We then coded all interview tran-
scripts separately before convening to compare codes. In this initial coding meeting, less than 5% of
the data was coded differently and disagreements were resolved by consensus. Finally, we used inter-
rater reliability as a verification tool to ensure coherence in and alignment to the theoretical frame-
works that form the basis of the analysis. Two members of the research team participated in data
coding and interpretation, and a third member checked a percentage of the codes for conceptual accu-
racy, from which interrater reliability was calculated. The final interrater reliability was 91.4%, above
the 80% threshold recommended by Miles and Huberman (1994).
In another effort to promote reliability in our analyses, we constructed a code co-occurrence matrix
to get a sense of how the constructs were related among participants’ experiences; these are described
in detail later. After this, we arranged the codes by the TARGETS component to which the data was
first coded to determine broader patterns, focusing first on similarities among participants’ responses.
To do this, we first reviewed the codes from administrator interviews to represent the vision for the
school, followed by teachers’ responses regarding practice and, finally, the codes belonging to students.
Having arranged our major patterns, we reviewed the codes again to actively look for experiences that
did not fit; where appropriate, we have included exemplars of such disconfirming evidence. Disagree-
ment among the first and second author through this process was resolved by consensus, which
included reviewing the literature on goal theory and mastery learning to find similar or negative cases.
Finally, each author reviewed the final model. We repeated the review process with patterns and indi-
vidual codes until we reached consensus.
In qualitative research, validity refers to whether research is considered “plausible, credible, trust-
worthy, and, therefore, defensible” (Burke, 1997, p. 282). According to Burke, the primary threat to
validity in qualitative inquiry is researcher bias. To mitigate this, strategies suggested by Lincoln and
Guba (1985), Burke (1997), and Creswell and Miller (2000) were employed: first, the method of DQA
426 A. EMERY ET AL.
kept interpretations rooted in theory, drawing on empirical evidence outlined in extant literature. Sec-
ond, data interpretation regarding the practices, culture, and shared beliefs of Millennium School was
triangulated through the use of administrator, teacher, and student interviews.
Results
Given our interest in exploring whether Millennium School’s mastery-learning structures align
with recommendations for supporting mastery goals, we have organized the results by dimen-
sions of the TARGETS framework (tasks, authority, recognition, grouping, evaluation, time, and
social supports) individually; however, we found that each of the dimensions relied upon or had
implications for the others. As such, we present data that clearly represents individual dimen-
sions first, with a discussion regarding the connections between them following. For each
TARGETS component, we also describe, where relevant, the structures that support mastery
learning (Bloom, 1968) and compare the responses among administrators, teachers, and students.
Administrators’ responses represent the vision for the school; teachers’ responses represent their
understanding and implementation of that vision in practice; and students’ responses represent
their perceptions of their experiences of those practices. This hierarchical organization mirrors
the way the administration conceptualizes the structure of the school; as administrator Mr. Arm-
strong noted, “We’re kind of here to help teach the teachers, and what we do with them is what
we would like to see them work on with the kids.” Table 2 provides exemplar quotations for
each dimension of TARGETS from each group.
Tasks
In discussing tasks, comments by administrators and teachers at Millennium School were aligned with
a mastery-goal structure, but students’ perceptions were not. Administrators envisioned tasks as the
primary method through which students can be engaged in STEM content. The school implements col-
laborative, project-based challenges across all content areas (see Table 2). Ms. Anderson, the school’s
lead principal, referred to this project-based approach to tasks as a “perk,” or something that students
should perceive as a benefit of attending the school. Teachers largely reported relying on inquiry-based
learning to carry out this vision, and the kinds of tasks they assigned were varied. In addition to
inquiry-based projects, teachers also referenced at least 11 different kinds of tasks, including group
work, individual homework, in-class worksheets, problem-based projects, computer-based learning
tasks and assessments, research reports, informal assessments, unit exams, and tasks designed specifi-
cally for remediation. The strategy of using a variety of tasks maps well onto recommendations by
Bloom to support mastery learning (e.g., 1968, 1974; Guskey, 2007) and also reflects recommendations
by Ames (1992b) to facilitate mastery goals.
As Mr. Troy noted, the school as a whole focuses on “a lot of 21st century skills … We look at
STEM as a state of mind—very problem based, [involving] problem solving, a lot of authenticity,” and
teachers’ curricula were designed to help foster these skills. Despite the school’s overall emphasis on
varied and authentic tasks, however, there was a perception among teachers that middle school stu-
dents, specifically, require concrete instruction—that they are perhaps not developmentally ready to
participate in what they referred to as “higher level” thinking.
In contrast to teachers’ descriptions, student interviews indicated that they did not focus on
the variability in instructional tasks (e.g., homework, projects, or tests; Guskey, 2007). Instead,
they seemed to consider tasks almost entirely in terms of requirements to demonstrate mastery:
how difficult a task would be to master and whether they had attempted, mastered, or were
required to remediate a specific task. Generally, students perceived the tasks that they were
assigned to be challenging and they talked about this challenge primarily in terms of “demon-
strating” mastery. Nearly all of them indicated that Millennium School required them to “work
hard,” which, for some students, included recognizing the importance of self-regulation
strategies:
Table 2. Exemplars.
Component Administrators Teachers Students
Tasks “We made some shifts in our courses “I use a lot of inquiry, you know. “You have to get a 90% or above
that we’re offering, to make it a And I just want kids to kind of to pass a test, or to pass, like,
little more fun.” figure things out, and an assignment.”
sometimes they’re not quite
ready for those higher-level kind
of thinking questions.”
Authority “The teacher has to be okay with “You’ve got a kid that can’t even “I feel like if I went to talk to [a
giving up some of that ownership bring his pencil to class and … teacher] more, then she could
in the classroom … student voices you’re expecting him to take the figure out what I need to
are just as imperative, um, initiative.” learn.” (Emphasis added)
important as teacher voices.”
Recognition “There’s not a lot of bells and whistles. “I guess I’ll just individually say, “If you’re not working hard, they
Some teachers, as students master ‘Hey, you did a great job on this will tell you that you need to
tests, they’ll write their name on test.’” step up.”
the glass. But that’s pretty much
the extent of the accolades that
come from taking advantage of
your own opportunities.”
Grouping “That’s probably the biggest thing … “They don’t really do a lot of “I’ve always been ahead of my
having appropriateness [in class tracking here, but I think there peers, and so taking class
placement] not just based on what may have to be some degree of twice as fast has been a good
‘I’ can do, but what’s appropriate that.” level for me to learn.”
for ‘me’ as a learner.”
Evaluation “Not trying to compare your child’s “I think [students] had a very good “It’s a lot more difficult to get a 90
progress against someone else’s, experience here, if you take the than just a passing grade, you
but we want [parents] to grade equation out of it.” know?”
understand that every time
students have to repeat a course,
that’s one college class that you
don’t have access to.”
Time “We had to equalize the playing field “Well, it’s just the time it takes to “I’m really bad about
for all those students. And so the study to get to that A-level, and [procrastinating], I’m waiting
only way to do that was to hold to remediate everything to get ’til the last minute ‘cause there
them to the same standard, but that A-level. I mean, it’s just an are some days [when] I have
giving them the opportunity and awful lot.” no homework and then one
the time to reach that same day, like, ‘oh, my paper is due
measure.” tomorrow.’”
Social Support “The biggest thing that you need to “I think emotionally, it’s a good, “Like it just totally, like, blew me
understand is that we care about safe place to be. And it’s an away. Like, you just have to do
kids and we don’t just say it, we do encouraging environment. It’s a it all on your own. But they
it. We show it on a daily basis. If the very positive environment.” give you everything that you
decisions [teachers] made in your need. You just have to put it in
classroom are for the good of the your type of way that will work
kids, then you made the right for you, basically.”
decision.”
Researcher: What’s “working hard,” though? What does that mean?
Fiona: Probably studying every night for stuff that’s, like, a week later because you want to get that 90% on that
test, or else stuff [to be remediated] is just going to keep building. Or, like getting done with your project in two
nights instead of procrastinating, I think that really helps. Not procrastinating here.
On the other hand, as Fiona’s quote suggests, procrastination was also a common theme among all
students, who either admitted to engaging in this behavior, or shared the strategies they developed to
overcome it. Together, students seemed to perceive the workload at Millennium School to be greater
than at other middle schools they had attended and, as a result, as requiring careful time management
(discussed in further detail later).
In summary, administrators’ vision for tasks aligned well with mastery-goal conceptions of activities
that are meaningful, as well as Bloom’s (1968) recommendations for variation in tasks. The lead
administrator extended this definition to include engaging and fun. Teachers attempted to implement
this vision primarily through the use of inquiry-based or project-based learning and assigned a variety
428 A. EMERY ET AL.
of tasks. Students, however, perceived tasks in a way that aligns more closely with performance orienta-
tions, as their stated goal for any task was, first and foremost, to earn a grade of 90% or higher. Because
of this, students’ conceptualizations of tasks seemed closely aligned with evaluation. The amount of
work assigned seemed to trigger behaviors associated with performance orientations, particularly pro-
crastination, although some students seemed to develop self-regulatory strategies that helped them
avoid procrastinating.
Authority
With respect to shared authority, administrators’ views seemed consistent with mastery-goal
structures; however, teachers and students’ views were less so (see Table 2). The administration
envisioned students taking ownership of their learning, and understood this shared ownership of
knowledge construction to be indicative of students engaging deeply with the content. According
to Ms. Adams, “I just tell teachers … for students to be able to master something, students have
to have some ownership in the classroom. Because a good display of mastery is for students to
be able to articulate, verbally, about something, or present it, or be able to show a model of
something.”
Teachers seemed to have adopted this vision and reported implementing opportunities for students
to articulate and present their work. For example, Ms. Tinsley described a student project: “They all
had to do the research, essay, and a narrative … and then they had to present; we had judges come in
and they had to present.” Many teachers indicated a willingness to share authority for knowledge
construction in the classroom, but questioned whether middle school students were ready for that
responsibility because of a perceived developmental need for organizational structure. For instance,
Mr. Thompson wondered whether his assignments were “geared too much toward critical thinking,”
especially in light of how “needy” he perceived his middle school students to be: “So many questions.
You know, ‘what does this question mean?’ What am I supposed to do? Can I write on the test? Can I
…’ They need more direction.”
In contrast, students seemed to feel personal responsibility for learning, although this was nearly
always associated with remediation, rather than the initial learning process:
Bridget: [When I go] through the remediation process, I, like, look up videos of how to do it, I talk to my teacher,
and I really understand the material after that. Like, after doing all that work, I feel like it’s easier for me to do …
I probably should do that ahead of time.
Students also seemed to perceive the opportunity to share in knowledge-construction in class:

Fiona: She gives a lot of discussion with the class, like we can talk back to her and have a conversation instead of,
like, a lecturing kind of thing. It’s like, we can talk to her … all the teachers are like that.
In summary, Millennium School seems to have pedagogical structures in place for students to
participate in knowledge construction alongside their teachers, which aligns with Ames’s (1992a)
suggestions for supporting mastery goals and offering multiple opportunities to demonstrate
understanding of the material, which reflects Bloom’s (1968) model of mastery learning. While
this approach to instruction is aligned with authority as conceptualized by Ames (1992a) in ways
to promote mastery, participants across each of the groups identified a need for structures to
support students because of perceptions of students’ developmental readiness and needs. Teachers
seemed to struggle with how to balance student autonomy with appropriate support. In some
instances this meant that students were granted too much autonomy in ways that undermined
academic success: students often seemed to wait until remediation to engage deeply with content,
and they relied on teachers to help make sense of their learning needs. Although students
reported relying on teachers in this way, most reported feeling comfortable approaching their
teachers for help, suggesting a relationship between authority and social supports. Finally, teacher
responses highlighted the importance of shared authority between administrators and teachers
and between teachers and students.
Recognition
Administrators and teachers reported policies and practices related to recognition that were not consis-
tent with promoting a mastery-goal structure. Interestingly, recognition practices did not seem salient
in students’ interviews. Across the school, the approach to recognition aimed to keep students academ-
ically focused (see Table 2), which may be an attempt to align with Bloom’s (1968, 1971) conception of
corrective feedback. For the administrative team, students’ mastering of course content indicated only
that they were meeting expectations, which was not necessarily noteworthy. Additionally, the adminis-
trative team understood traditional schoolwide means of recognizing student success (e.g., honor rolls)
as an invitation for students to compare themselves to their peers. Instead, the principal team hoped
students felt cared for:
Ms. Anderson: We don’t do class ranking, or typical things; honor roll, things like that. Because then, again, that
puts us in a position where we’re still comparing a student’s successes to the students who aren’t at the same place.
So, I think probably the biggest accolades that we say we give are just when students … know that we care about
them.
Teachers reported no organized structures or methods for recognizing student success, although
some (e.g., a Student of the Week program) were attempted at the beginning of the academic year.
Instead, teachers largely reported working to recognize students on an individual basis. In practice,
however, this recognition often included public displays. As Ms. Taylor described, “I have a wall of
mastery … it’s a sea of mastery. They get little fishes up in the sea of mastery if they get mastery on
one of the assignments.” Furthermore, teachers talked about the lack of having to complete remedia-
tion activities as an unstated reward for students who mastered content on the first attempt:
Ms. Tinsley: [Students are] recognized in the sense that the kids … that have to recover their class, that are not at
mastery, have to go to their teacher to get that done. So, kids that are at mastery, they’re allowed to go out and just
read or … work on other things.
Recognition for success did not emerge as a salient component of the student experience, though
students seemed aware of the administration’s attempt to downplay comparisons between them. As
Gloria reported, “They encourage kids not to talk about their own grades in front of other people.”
Although the administrators worried about students comparing their success to others, this seemed
most salient in connection to evaluation, discussed below.
In all, the lack of articulated structures in place to recognize students’ effort and improvement sug-
gests that recognition practices were not implemented in a way that would support mastery goals.
Instead, in the absence of established schoolwide practices, a range of idiosyncratic, informal practices
emerged that tended to promote a performance orientation by publicizing students’ relative standing.
Additionally, in spite of the administration’s stated goal of de-emphasizing comparisons, administra-
tors and students nonetheless noted frequent peer comparisons among students. These comparisons
are discussed in more detail later, as they seemed particularly salient to students in terms of evaluation.
Grouping
Grouping practices at Millennium School sent mixed messages to students, sometimes inviting peer com-
parison, in the case of between-class practices, and other times encouraging students to focus on their
own learning, in the case of within-class practices. Although the original TARGET framework discusses
grouping in terms of in-class instruction, conversations with administrators and teachers about grouping
focused primarily on flexible course scheduling (see Table 2). This policy permits students to retake clas-
ses over several semesters, or accelerate through traditional classes and begin college coursework early,
which leads to students being placed in classes with different groups of peers over time. Allowing stu-
dents to retake classes seems to align with Bloom’s (1968) recommendation that students have the time
that they need to master the material. The option to accelerate through coursework is Millennium
School’s interpretation of Bloom’s recommendation that advanced students be provided with enrichment
or extension activities; though not in complete alignment with Bloom’s recommendation, the school’s
430 A. EMERY ET AL.
goal is to ensure that students are engaging in material appropriate for their ability level. As Mr. Arm-
strong described:
That’s one of the other things I think we do really well is placing kids in classes based on ability level, not by grade
level. So we try to meet kids where they’re at, so that way if they do have gaps we can fill them in and really create
that strong foundation before we move them on to the next class.
The opportunity to “learn at your own pace” was perceived as among the most valuable of the per-
ceived opportunities provided by Millennium School. Ames (1992b) suggests that grouping practices
should promote meaningful learning; to this end, Dennis mentioned, “I like how you can change clas-
ses at your own speed so that if you already passed a test in a class and you already understand it, you
can go onto a new class.”
For administrators and teachers, however, this practice generated questions about how best to bal-
ance students’ academic and developmental needs. For example, Ms. Tinsley felt that “[the current sys-
tem is] geared probably towards the brighter students, or the more motivated student. So I think we’re
going to try some different levels … so kids can feel success without having to work as hard.” Ms.
Tinsley’s observation suggests that the accelerated course structure itself, though intended to support
students’ learning, amplifies differences between those students who are successful and those who are
not. Students seemed to perceive these differences as well. When asked about being in class with an
eighth-grader, Dennis, a sixth-grader, replied:
Sometimes it is fun, and sometimes you feel bad for them, because it can either mean that you are ahead of your
age group or they are really behind. So sometimes you feel bad for them and you’re trying and explain it more and
hang out with them more so they understand it.
Thus, on one hand, students did perceive grouping practices at the class level as supporting their
own learning, consistent with mastery-goal structures. On the other hand, grouping students by ability
also seemed to invite peer comparisons, which are strongly associated with performance-goal struc-
tures (Anderman & Wolters, 2006; Turner & Patrick, 2004).
At the within-class level, grouping practices seemed more consistently associated with mastery-goal
structures. Students at Millennium School have many formal and informal opportunities to work in
groups, as collaboration is among the “21st century skills” that the school focuses on developing.
Teachers and students understand the primary purpose of group work to be learning to collaborate
with others. In fact, one teacher summarized the Millennium School philosophy as “mastery and col-
laboration,” which was a theme echoed by Ms. Taylor, who emphasized the importance of students
learning “those 21st century skills of being able to communicate, collaborate, time manage.”
Students often talked about the benefits of collaboration in terms of their own learning. For
example, Eddie explained:
I guess part of [Millennium School], they think collaboration is important because … it lets you get two point of
views for your one paper … and I think it’s good because … having many point of views on the certain thing can
make you learn more than when you just have your point of view.
In summary, students seemed to perceive grouping practices to be important in their individual

pursuits of moving through their coursework, although they noted that their classes provided opportu-
nities for peer comparisons. Teachers felt grouping primarily made distinctions between students in
regard to their effort or aptitude, such that some students had to work harder and remediate more
often than others. They also perceived the current “grouping system” (accelerated course scheduling)
to be best geared toward students with stronger academic abilities. This can be interpreted as indicative
of both mastery and performance-goal structures simultaneously: Student performance is an important
component of whether they must remediate or are permitted to move on, while students have the abil-
ity to pursue their individual learning goals. Grouping practices at Millennium School, then, sent
inconsistent messages. They were not entirely incompatible with supporting a mastery-goal structure.
However, students’ perceptions of the grouping practices as normative references of their success sug-
gest an alignment with a performance-goal structure. In contrast, administrators envisioned grouping
in line with a mastery-goal perspective, reporting it as a method of supporting students in their individ-
ual trajectories, while also developing skills that were central to the school’s mission.
Evaluation
Administrators envisioned evaluation as a way to ensure students access to educational opportunities
as they are ready (see Table 2). The school’s mastery system was designed to allow students multiple
opportunities for success while facilitating an accelerated pacing schedule:
Ms. Anderson: The mastery system thus allows us to teach high-rigor courses but also you know, making sure that
we instituted a process to assess whether the kids really were college ready or not … The notion of mastery also
comes into play with the philosophy of having an inclusive school that invites any type of learner into the school
environment.
However, teachers and students perceived a strong sense of pressure on students’ academic achievement. Mr.
Thompson suggested the current mastery system may work against developmental characteristics of middle school
students, saying, “They’re not ready for that level of intensity, to get a 90 on every assignment.”
It seems, however, that despite performance pressure, teachers understood the mastery assessment
system as an opportunity to craft an individual learning trajectory focused on true understanding of
the material. Regarding “failing” (i.e., any grade lower than 90%), Ms. Tinsley explained, “Failure isn’t
permanent, and you can have an opportunity to learn. So, the focus is more on learning and not just,
‘okay, you got a grade, you fail it, you’re done.’ We want to make sure kids learn.” This perspective is
particularly well-aligned with Bloom’s (1968) goal of mastery learning.
For students, earning a grade of 90% was perhaps the most salient aspect of their school experience.
Although they generally spoke positively of the mastery system, particularly in terms of the instrumen-
tal value the skills learned would have for them in the future, they nonetheless described their experien-
ces in terms of feeling pressure and being compared to their peers. For example, Isaac suggested, “It
adds a little bit of pressure and … Because you’ve got to make sure that you are ready for the test and
you are ready for these assignments, because you’ve got to get them right—but at the same time, I really
do like it.” In addition to the time required to remediate (discussed later), the 90% threshold did seem
to invite comparisons between students especially in regard to attempts toward mastery. Fiona said, “I
don’t consider myself one of the smarter ones … I see a bunch of people around me getting 90s right
off the bat, or like getting 95s on their tests and then I’m sitting here getting like, 50s and 60s the first
time so … you just don’t feel like you’re there yet.”
In addition to the 90% threshold, these middle school students perceived pressure to complete high
school credits so they could begin taking college coursework, a practice called “gatewaying.” They rec-
ognized this as an academic benefit of the school’s programming, but also used being on track to “gate-
way” as another point of comparison to their peers. Ms. Taylor reiterated this point, suggesting that
this pressure helps to regulate student behavior: “I also think that because of [Millennium School’s]
educational model where students are going to college classes and … it is cool to be the nerdy kid …
when you see all of your friends going to take … college classes and you are stuck taking the high
school classes with the incoming freshmen, you know, you start to straighten up.”
The school’s principal, however, explained perceived pressure to perform as students choosing not
to take advantage of systems in place to support their learning. According to Ms. Anderson, “If you
don’t perform well on a test and a teacher gives you a reassessment date, and wants you to come to
tutoring so that you can make sure you’ve been re-taught the information that you missed for the next
assessment period, but you choose not to do that—and then the test comes, yeah, you do feel the pres-
sure to perform.”
In summary, evaluation was a complicated piece of the Millennium School experience and seemed
to send mixed messages, simultaneously promoting and undermining mastery goals as conceptualized
by TARGETS. Administrators understood evaluation, specifically, the implementation of the 90%
threshold grade, to serve two purposes. First, it represented a way to be inclusive: Students could reme-
diate as often as necessary to demonstrate mastery, a practice envisioned to communicate that all
432 A. EMERY ET AL.
learners are welcome and supported as recommended by Bloom (1968). Second, it also served as a nor-
mative reference, in terms of whether students “mastered” or did not “master” coursework at their first
attempt. Teachers perceived the school’s evaluation practices to communicate to students that “failure
isn’t permanent” (Ms. Tinsley), which seems aligned with a mastery-goal structure, but they also wor-
ried about the developmental appropriateness of requiring every student to earn an A on every assign-
ment. These sorts of threshold practices, Guskey (2007) suggests, are a misunderstanding of Bloom’s
(1968) recommendation of setting learning goals or standards, because they make the concept of mas-
tery “narrow and rigid,” rather than a flexible system designed to accommodate learners’ individual dif-
ferences. Instead, Bloom (1971) suggests that evaluation should serve as formative information for
students’ ongoing learning, regarding what students know and what they still must practice. In con-
trast, students overwhelmingly understood the evaluative practices of Millennium School to be a nor-
mative reference of their abilities, perceiving pressure to perform in ways that are aligned with a
performance-goal structure.
Time
The issue of time focused primarily on the pacing system utilized by the school, including both
the remediation system and the semester schedule. As Mr. Armstrong described it, “Here we say,
‘This is the performance level we want. The time you spend in a class is going to be adjusted
based on how long it takes you to get to that performance level.’” Thus, the administrative team
envisioned the flexible approach to time as a benefit of the school’s mastery system, perceiving
time to serve two functions for students: First, it allowed students to be in control of their own
pacing needs. The flexible course schedule allowed students to spend only the time they needed
to understand the material in a given class. Second, having access to more time, if needed, could
make salient the larger goal of mastery. As Ms. Adams described, “The first time you fail, you’re
not a failure; you just … didn’t learn it. You just need more time.” This reflects well Bloom’s
(1968, 1971) own perspective of mastery, suggesting that instructional time be adaptive based on
students’ needs.
In contrast, teachers perceived time as the source of students’ consternation regarding learning and
attempts to mastery. Specifically, the remediation policy for all student work prevented teachers from
enforcing deadlines and raised concern about students’ self-regulation. According to Ms. Tinsley, “You
can’t have a deadline, because they always have an opportunity to remediate. And I can’t work without
deadlines as an adult; if you don’t give me a deadline, it’s probably not going to get done. So we’re
expecting middle-schoolers to be motivated without a deadline?”
Teachers and students each identified this aspect of the remediation policy as breeding bad habits
regarding self-regulation, including procrastination. As Mr. Thompson described, “It’s just not teach-
ing kids responsibility. I guess I feel the whole mastery system really encourages procrastination. And I
often wonder if we’re doing kids any favor.” Gloria reiterated this observation from the student per-
spective, highlighting the tension between the intended purpose of the mastery system and students’
experience with it, explaining:
There are some ups and downs to the remediation policy. I feel really glad that it’s there. Because if I got a bad
grade on the test in any other school, that’s it. End of story … But here you are allowed to retake the test. But, it
also causes you to feel, to almost be lazy sometimes because, “Oh! I don’t have to do this well on the test, I can do
it … over again and so I’ll do better next time,” and that has happened to me quite a bit this year.
Teachers also wondered about the appropriateness of the 90% criterion for middle school students
because of the time needed to remediate assignments and classes. Ms. Tinsley reported, “For most of
them, I don’t think they’re used to going that fast. And I’ve heard that a lot, ‘This math class is fast.’ So
I think some of that pressure is that it’s just too fast for some of them.” Teachers understood the accel-
erated curriculum in combination with the remediation requirement to foster discouragement. As Ms.
Taylor described, “Beating them over the head with it four different times is just gonna make them
angry and turn them off.” Mr. Thompson elaborated:
They kinda give up. Where maybe they could get a 70, which isn’t terrible, or an 80, which isn’t terrible, but some-
times they think they can’t … ’Cause for some students it’s going to take them an awful lot of work to get up to
that mastery, to that A level.
This sentiment was echoed in student interviews, where time was perceived as a cost, particularly related to reme-
diation. For instance,
Researcher: What has been most challenging about your schoolwork this year?
Abigail: The time they give you. They give you about like maybe a week to finish up a large project, but they are
expecting you to do this because they want you to get ready for like college and high school … Trouble is, I don’t
have enough time to fit the whole project into that one week … I am not very good at timing.
As another example, Holly, an eighth-grader, was taking 10th-grade chemistry for the third time,
and spending three to four days a week in office hours with her teacher after school. Eddie reported
feeling motivated to study harder not to achieve mastery but to avoid the time cost of remediation. As
he described, “It definitely makes me study a lot harder and it makes me wanna know the unit’s learn-
ing targets more because you try and not to remediate because it takes a long time.”
In summary, administrators envisioned time at Millennium School as functioning in ways that sup-
port mastery goals by providing room for students to engage with content until they understand it.
Teachers and students, however, felt this engagement was undermined by a lack of self-regulatory sup-
ports (e.g., deadlines) that seemed to foster avoidance habits, especially for assignments that students
perceived to be challenging. Additionally, teachers worried and students reported that the time
required for some students to reach the threshold of 90% became a burden, in ways that were not nec-
essary to maintain a focus on learning for the sake of learning.
Social support
The existing social supports at Millennium School received high praise from administrators, teachers,
and students across the board. Administrators attributed this to the school’s philosophy that all stu-
dents can achieve mastery and should be permitted to find their own way there. Warm relationships
between teachers and students are encouraged by the administration, who provide structured opportu-
nities for teachers to build these relationships, According to Ms. Anderson, “I give them the time to do
this, to send emails to their advisees … So if you haven’t thought about that student, guess what, I’m
giving you some time to really think about what you can positively say about that student’s perfor-
mance, or as an individual.”
Depending on the content of these emails, there is an opportunity for this exchange to meet Bloom’s
(1968) recommendation of providing students with formative feedback regarding their learning and
current competency; however, we did not have access to emails between staff and students, and no par-
ticipating teachers mentioned these exchanges in their interviews.
Teachers perceived the school environment as a safe space, stemming from the vision and tone set by the adminis-
trative team. Mr. Thompson remarked, “That’s the high point, I think. It’s just a very positive atmosphere,
amongst the students and, I think, the faculty and the administration models it. ’Cause they’re very respectful to
the teachers. You know? I mean I think that kind of filters down to the students, too.”
This environment supports both student engagement in STEM subjects and the independent explo-
ration needed to develop a customized academic trajectory:
Bridget: I feel like I’ve been able to be more myself here and discover what I’m really interested in, like compared
to like, what I acted like I was interested in to fit in.
Researcher: Can you give me an example?
Bridget: Like, I went to engineering club. I would have never done that at my old school.
Students also felt comfortable talking with teachers about content that they were struggling with. In
describing going to office hours, Isaac said, “The teachers definitely do provide opportunities that if
434 A. EMERY ET AL.
you need help, if you need something, you can get it.” In an effort to support mastery learning through
individualized support as recommended by Bloom (1971), students seemed to receive strong messages
of social support in ways that can facilitate adaptive goal orientations (Patrick et al., 2001).
Thus, administrators envisioned the environment at Millennium School to be a warm atmosphere
in which students felt safe engaging in learning, as suggested by the TARGETS framework. Teachers
recognized the supportive atmosphere modeled by administrators and saw the supportive environment
reflected in the way students treated each other, ultimately saving time otherwise spent managing a
classroom for teaching and learning. Students overwhelmingly reported school to be a place where
they had strong relationships with their peers and teachers, and in which they felt they belonged, indic-
ative of a mastery-goal structure.
Table 3 presents a summary of Millennium School administrator, teacher, and student perceptions
of the components that can support mastery goals. The administrative vision seemed aligned to theo-
retical conceptualizations of mastery goals for tasks, authority, group, time, and social supports. Simi-
larly, teacher practices were aligned with fostering a mastery-goal structure in the areas of tasks and
social supports. Teachers reported understanding the purpose of grouping and evaluation in terms
that were aligned with supporting mastery goals, but their practice seemed aligned with performance
goals, in the case of evaluation, or inconsistently aligned with mastery goals, in the case of grouping.
Students largely reported perceiving performance-oriented messages in all areas except recognition
(which was not salient in their interview responses), and social supports.
Discussion
This study had two purposes. First, given limited research on the motivational impact of mastery learn-
ing, this study examined how the vision, practice, and perceptions of Millennium School’s mastery
learning structure compare to the recommendations summarized within the acronym TARGETS
(Ames, 1992a; Anderman, Patrick, & Ryan, 2004; Patrick et al., 2001). In exploring an environment
that appeared to be aligned with mastery-goal structures, this study also sought to contribute to the
small body of work on school-level–goal structures (e.g., Maehr & Midgley, 1996).
Our data revealed distinct areas of alignment and misalignment across the administrative vision,
teacher implementation, and student perceptions of Millennium School’s mastery-learning system.
First, there was some alignment between vision, practice, and perception in ways that also align with
the recommendations of the TARGETS framework. In particular, students perceived a strong sense of
social support in the school, both with teachers and peers, a sentiment that was also reflected in teacher
and administrative comments. Additionally, administrators, teachers, and students understood at least
some aspects of the school’s grouping practices to support students’ learning. This suggests that the
grouping practices as enacted by Millennium School (e.g., accelerated coursework that mixes grade lev-
els and collaboration within classes) and as conceptualized by theory (promoting interaction and col-
laboration) could promote mastery-goal orientations. Yet this was tempered by the increased
opportunity for peer comparison that class-level grouping practices created.
There were also aspects of administrators’ vision and teacher practices that, although consistent
with each other, did not consistently align with goal theorists’ recommendations. The most salient of
Table 3. Summary of analysis.
Component Administrator Teacher Student
Tasks Y Y N
Authority Y N N
Recognition N N Not salient
Grouping Y Y Y
Evaluation N N* N
Time Y N N
Social Supports Y Y Y

Teachers articulated an understanding supported by the framework, but their described practices did not align.
these was evaluation. The administration’s vision of evaluation seemed simultaneously consistent and
inconsistent with evaluation as conceptualized in the TARGETS framework: They emphasized both
the opportunity for students to learn at their own pace and the normative pressure on students to keep
up with their peers. Teachers struggled to balance the vision of mastery learning in theory and the
logistics of implementing their mastery assessment system in practice. Students, in turn, picked up
mixed messages from teacher practices and ultimately found meeting the 90% criterion more salient
than the emphasis on learning, improvement, and progress.
The school’s approach to recognition also was not aligned with the recommendations of the TAR-
GETS framework, in part, because it was closely linked with the school’s approach to evaluation. The
school did not explicitly recognize effort, progress, and growth. Instead, because of the strong emphasis
on reaching 90%, students were keenly aware of their peers’ progress, drawing comparisons to their
classmates to determine their own success. Administrators seemed aware of this tendency and explic-
itly mentioned having conversations with students and their families to mitigate such comparisons.
They encouraged students to consider only their own opportunities and chose not to institute typical
practices such as an academic honor roll, in an effort to limit such comparisons. These attempts, how-
ever, were somewhat undermined by contradictory practices at the classroom level. For example, teach-
ers regularly recognized student success (e.g., achieving a 90%) publicly, through practices such as
writing the names of students who mastered a particular task on the first attempt on the classroom
windows.
Although the school’s evaluation and recognition practices may have undermined the adaptive
climate afforded by mastery goal structures in and of themselves, this misalignment becomes par-
ticularly interesting when examined relative to some of the other dimensions of TARGETS.
Administrators understood tasks, authority, and time in ways consistent with the TARGETS
framework, but that vision did not ultimately translate into the adaptive student perceptions that
would be expected. Instead, the school’s approach to evaluation and, as a result, recognition
appeared to undermine the administrator’s vision and teacher practices that should have sup-
ported students’ adoption of mastery goals. For instance, although the administrative vision for
tasks seems aligned with the mastery emphasis promoted by the TARGETS framework and
teachers implemented these tasks as envisioned, students perceived tasks primarily as perfor-
mance indicators that were closely linked to evaluation and recognition rather than as opportuni-
ties to meaningfully engage with content to promote understanding. Students’ comments on their
tasks tended to reflect two categories: those for which they had achieved a 90% and those that
required remediation. The burden of meeting a predetermined minimum score in all tasks seems
aligned with performance orientations and behaviors related to avoidance habits, such as procras-
tination. These results support prior research linking performance-avoidance orientations to high-
pressure classroom environments that promote social comparisons among peers (e.g., Urdan,
2004b; Urdan, Midgley, et al., 1998; Urdan, Ryan, et al., 2002).
In terms of shared authority, students and staff reported having autonomy in some things, such as
students’ movement around the physical space of the school, but not in the heart of Ames’s (1992a;
1992b) definition, which is the co-construction of knowledge. Teachers reported having tried to engage
students in this co-construction, but students did not consistently recognize or embrace the opportu-
nity. On one hand, some students may not have been developmentally ready for the responsibility of
directing their own learning. On the other hand, because students perceived earning a score of 90% as
their primary goal, some seemed to defer to teachers when it came to determining what needed to be
done, rather than directing their own learning.
Administrators discussed the school’s use of time as providing students with as many opportunities
as needed to engage with course material, which should be supportive of mastery goals. Teachers, how-
ever, understood time as a burden for those students who were required to spend a substantial amount
of time in remediation, and students perceived this practice as a penalty because of the time involved.
Similarly, the school’s accelerated pacing schedule was perceived by all participants to be a benefit but
was also related to students’ normative comparisons of their success (in reaching “gateway” status) to
that of their peers.
436 A. EMERY ET AL.
Broader implications for practice and theory

Taken together, these results suggest that mastery learning, at least as instantiated by Millennium
School, does not have a consistently positive impact on student motivation. Indeed, even school struc-
tures otherwise well aligned with the conception of mastery-goal structures can be undermined when
implemented alongside evaluative “thresholds,” thus, we believe this study has implications for more-
traditional schools, as well. Despite being envisioned by Bloom (1968, 1971, 1974) as a way to down-
play competition, a schoolwide focus on the 90% criterion may be limiting the opportunity for students
to engage in learning strategies that promote deep engagement with content (Fiorella & Mayer, 2016;
Liem, 2016). These findings also have implications for our understanding of how goal structures func-
tion at the school level. Ames’s (1992b) overview of mastery-supportive environments emphasized that
the messaging of each dimension of the goal structure works in combination with the others; all are
important. Similarly, other work has found that ambiguous messaging from teachers promoted perfor-
mance-oriented behaviors in students (Patrick, Turner, Meyer, & Midgley, 2003); similar avoidance
behaviors were reported by many of the participants in our study. Our results further echo work by
Patrick and colleagues (2001), who found that evaluation practices were the most salient dimension in
determining whether teachers were perceived as leading classrooms high in performance structures. In
our study, administrators, teachers, and students agreed that the school’s social supports and grouping
practices were supportive, and administrators and teachers implemented tasks in line with a mastery-
supportive framework, but these practices ultimately could not buffer against the undermining effect
of their approaches to evaluation and recognition. In considering transferability to other educational
contexts, this study presents some evidence that mastery-goal structures can exist across an entire
school but require particular care in designing and implementing grouping and evaluation practices.
These findings notwithstanding, mastery-learning and mastery-goal structures are not so different
that they must inevitably conflict with each other; evaluation practices can be modified to support both
the building of skills and a focus on improvement, progress, and learning. Addressing the potential
overlap between mastery-learning and mastery-goal structures, Guskey and Anderman (2013) suggest
that “if teachers want their students to focus on mastery of content and tasks, they need to allow stu-
dents to work on tasks repeatedly, without penalties, until they achieve mastery” (p. 22). Millennium
School’s remediation policy represents an approach consistent with this recommendation. Schools
without a mastery system could consider adopting schoolwide remediation policies; however, these
remediation policies may not be successful without meaningfully defining mastery for students before
beginning a task, as suggested by Guskey and Anderman (2013). This should include both how mastery
will be measured and how a given task supports students’ development of competency of the content.
In terms of clearly linking tasks with competencies, each unit of content at Millennium School had spe-
cific learning targets, and mastery (along with any subsequent necessary remediation) was focused at
this level. In this regard, the school’s practices seem consistent with Guskey and Anderman’s (2013)
recommendations. In terms of defining how mastery will be measured, the school’s use of a 90%
threshold is certainly in line with Bloom’s (1968) original recommendation to be clear to students
about what constitutes achieving mastery, and the school provides the teachers autonomy to define
what students will do to earn their grade, as is also suggested by Bloom. However, where the current
practice may have fallen short of Bloom’s recommendation was in specifying for students how the tasks
in which they were engaged support competency development. Such threshold practices may serve to
make students task focused rather than content focused. One suggestion for both Millennium School
and more-traditional programs could be changing the “unit of mastery” from the assignments them-
selves to learning outcomes. Especially as course concepts often build upon each other, it may be possi-
ble to design a system in which students must demonstrate mastery on a learning outcome 90% of the
time that they encounter it across the course of the semester, rather than achieving 90% on a particular
assignment or assessment.
Further, though failure to achieve mastery results in required remediation at Millennium School, as
Bloom recommended, there was limited evidence in our data to suggest that these remediation exer-
cises were consistently tailored to students’ specific and individual learning needs, serving as the kind
of corrective feedback that Bloom (1968, 1971) describes in his model. For example, Bloom suggests
that corrective feedback should be “just-in-time” activities to support student learning; instead, in this
study, most teachers and students reported that the lack of enforced deadlines in the current system
often results in students delaying their remediation work, sometimes until the end of the semester.
While explicitly teaching self-regulation strategies is a widely recommended practice that may support
students in managing their workload (e.g., Pintrich, 2000), direct instruction in such strategies may not
address this issue entirely. Because students at Millennium School can move forward in their day-to-
day activities, remediation is effectively rendered a “to-do” instead of immediately informative and cor-
rective and, thus, useful for mastery moving forward. Millennium School and more-traditional pro-
grams could consider whether leveraging online learning platforms or other educational technology
can help provide students with tailored, in-the-moment feedback on learning objectives.
In terms of supporting mastery-goal orientations among students, the overwhelming emphasis on
evaluation and curriculum acceleration at Millennium School and other schools across the United
States (U.S. Department of Education, 2015) does not meet goal theorists’ recommendation that learn-
ing should be measured in terms of progress and self-improvement (Ames, 1992a). Instead, students
revealed a singular focus on meeting the threshold grade, rather than on viewing that grade as an indi-
cator of their learning. One possible alternative approach that captures growth and progress more in
line with a mastery-goal framework is introducing some form of value-added evaluation (Anderman,
Anderman, Yough, & Gimbert, 2010). Though typically utilized in evaluating teachers and schools, the
tenet of value-added assessments, or shifting focus away from simply measuring academic proficiency
among students to measuring academic growth, aligns with supporting mastery goals. Another poten-
tial approach is represented in the idea of “personal best goals” (Martin, 2006, 2013): detailed, challeng-
ing, and self-referencing opportunities for students to focus on improving their performance on future
tasks compared directly to those that they attempted previously rather than with their peers’ perfor-
mance. Though Martin (2013) draws a distinction between growth goals (“exceeding oneself”) and
mastery goals (“focused on the task”), the two are not incompatible in an environment such as Millen-
nium School, which aims to couple students’ individual progress through their academic trajectory
with deep learning of content. Given the salience of evaluation at Millennium School, these alternatives
could address the challenges faced by this school, in particular, and offer a model for other schools
seeking to implement a schoolwide mastery system.
Given that this study examined Millennium School’s new middle school program, future research
could include a similar case study with high school administrators, teachers, and students to clarify
whether the strengths and weaknesses of Millennium School’s mastery framework are specific to the
middle school level or might be evident across any schoolwide attempt to implement mastery learning.
Additionally, future work should investigate whether and how well administrators and teachers are
aligned in their shared understanding of mastery learning and mastery learning as practiced within the
school. Second, although the theoretical literature regarding the TARGETS framework makes clear
conceptual distinctions between each dimension, these analyses revealed reciprocally influential rela-
tionships between several of those dimensions. Other qualitative studies of the motivational climate of
classrooms have reported similar patterns, with different instructional practices being coded as serving
multiple purposes (e.g., Anderman, Andrzejewski, & Allen, 2011; Patrick et al., 2001; Turner & Meyer,
2004). This invites future research to further determine how the actions and messages students observe
in their experiences across an entire school may interact with each other to inform students’ adoption
of goal orientations.
Conclusion
Cultivating and supporting a mastery-learning system and mastery-goal orientations in students is a
complicated task for classroom teachers. Implementing structures across an entire school only
increases the opportunities for students to receive mixed, or no, signaling about the purpose and aims
of their learning and activities. This study contributes to the existing literature by examining what
must be considered when implementing a schoolwide mastery-learning system that also consistently
438 A. EMERY ET AL.
supports mastery-goal structures. There is not one particular practice that can ensure that students
develop mastery goals; staff and students perceive many dimensions of the school experience to be
deeply entwined. Because of this, structures designed to support students in engaging deeply with
material can be undermined by others. Thus, school-level–mastery-learning policies and their instanti-
ation in classes must be examined critically and in concert to ensure they work together to send consis-
tent messages to students.
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Appendix: Interview protocols

Administrator interview questions
1. How is the middle school program going? From an administrative standpoint, what have been the
middle school’s biggest successes, and what opportunities remain for the program?
2. How well do you think the overall Millennium model works for middle-grades students? What, if
anything, did you feel you had to modify because of the students’ age and readiness? What seemed
particularly suitable? Difficult?
3. What does it look like for a student to succeed at Millennium? What sorts of accomplish-
ments are recognized? What sorts of structures are in place at Millennium to recognize stu-
dent success?
4. What do you think that a student needs to be successful in the Millennium middle school pro-
gram? Does this program work for all students? Is there a particular type of student who is more
likely to be successful here?
5. How did you learn about Millennium’s philosophy? How do you communicate it to teach-
ers and students? To what extent does it shape your teaching practice? How? In what ways
do you see it reflected in the school climate? How do you talk about these ideas with your
students?
6.
7.
8. When you think about students in the middle school grades, what do you think are their most sig-
nificant developmental characteristics or needs? How well does the Millennium model meet those
needs? How do you try to meet those needs in your classroom/practice?
9. How would you compare the successes and challenges of this approach to other middle school
programs that you are familiar with? How would you compare the middle school program to the
high school program at Millennium?
10. If you were giving advice to a teacher new to Millennium, coming into the middle school program,
what would be the most important things for her or him to know?
11. How much have student misbehavior and/or disciplinary concerns been an issue this year and how
have you handled that? How do behavioral concerns fit within the larger Millennium philosophy?
Do you see concerns being handled differently at the middle- versus high school levels? Should
they be?
Teacher interview questions

1. Coming into this year, what sorts of expectations did you have about what it would be like to teach
at Millennium (or, if the teacher was already at Millennium, what expectations did you have about
what it would be like to teach in the middle school program)? Now that the first year of the middle
school program at Millennium is coming to a close, what are your overall thoughts about how it
went? As you look toward next year, what might you do differently, both in terms of your own
teaching and at the program level?
2. If you were giving advice to a teacher new to Millennium, coming into the middle school program,
what would be the most important things for them to know?
3. How well do you think the overall Millennium model works for middle grades students? What, if
anything, did you feel you had to modify because of the students’ age and readiness? What seemed
particularly suitable? difficult?
4. When you think about students in the middle school grades, what do you think are their most sig-
nificant developmental characteristics or needs? How well does the Millennium model meet those
needs? How do you try to meet those needs in your classroom/practice?
5. How much have student misbehavior and/or disciplinary concerns been an issue this year and how
have you handled that? How do behavioral concerns fit within the larger Millennium philosophy?
Do you see concerns being handled differently at the middle- versus high school levels? Should they
be?
6. How would you compare the successes and challenges of this approach to other middle school pro-
grams you are familiar with? How would you compare the middle school program to the high
school program at Millennium?
7. What does it look like for a student to succeed at Millennium? What sorts of accomplishments are
recognized? What sorts of structures are in place at Millennium to recognize student success?
8. What do you think that a student needs to be successful in the Millennium middle school program?
Does this program work for all students? Is there a particular type of student who is more likely to
be successful here?
9. How did you learn about Millennium’s philosophy? To what extent does it shape your teaching
practice? How? In what ways do you see it reflected in the school climate? How do you talk about
these ideas with your students?
Student interview questions (questions in bold must be asked)

1. So, how many years have you been at Millennium? What have been (were) your expectations com-
ing into Millennium?
Clarify/redirect/expand:
In what ways is this year turning out (or did this year turn out) the way you thought it would?
In what ways is this year NOT turning out (did this year NOT turn out) the way you thought it
would?
How is it (was it) different from other schools that you have been in?
2. Now I’d like to talk about your class work and your homework at Millennium. What has it been
like (was it like) this year?
Why is that? (Can you give me an example. In what ways?)
What has been most challenging about your school work this year?
What sorts of support do you get from your teachers?
Do you get to choose the work that you do?
Do you work with anyone?
3. Tell me about the mastery system ! only ask if not naturally covered in #2.
How does it work?
How do you feel about the mastery system?
What happens if a student doesn’t achieve mastery?
Have you had to do recovery (remediation)? What was it like?
4. Let’s switch gears and talk about your teachers and your experiences of being a student here.
What are the expectations for students at Millennium?
5. Now let’s talk about how you fit in here.
Would you say it is easy to be yourself here at Millennium? Why/why not?
Clarify/Redirect: Do you have to try hard to fit in? Do you have to change who you are to have
friends or have good relationships with your teachers?

Is it easy or difficult to make friends at Millennium?
& Follow-up: What makes it easy/difficult? Why is that? OR Can you give me an example?
Are there people like you who also attend Millennium?

Let’s talk about respect at Millennium. Do the teachers respect you? How do you know?
What about the other students? Do they respect you? How do you know?
Do you enjoy studying STEM? Why/why not?
What about the school itself? Do you and your friends at Millennium like this school?
Are you glad you attend Millennium? Is there any other school you’d rather go to?

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The Journal of Experimental Education

ISSN: 0022-0973 (Print) 1940-0683 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjxe20

When Mastery Goals Meet Mastery Learning:

Alyssa Emery, Megan Sanders, Lynley H. Anderman & Shirley L. Yu

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220973.2017.1341863

Published online: 06 Jul 2017.

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MOTIVATION AND SOCIAL PROCESSES

When Mastery Goals Meet Mastery Learning: Administrator,

Achievement goals and goal structures

Participants and procedure

Table 1. Overview of participants.

Ms. Anderson Lead Principal F Black 11 years

Researcher: How so? Like, what does that sound like?

Reliability and validity

Component Administrators Teachers Students

Researcher: What’s “working hard,” though? What does that mean?

Students also seemed to perceive the opportunity to share in knowledge-construction in class:

In summary, students seemed to perceive grouping practices to be important in their individual

Researcher: Can you give me an example?

Table 3. Summary of analysis.

Component Administrator Teacher Student

Broader implications for practice and theory

Guskey, T. R. (2010). Lessons of mastery learning. Educational Leadership, 68(2), 52–57.

Appendix: Interview protocols

Teacher interview questions

Student interview questions (questions in bold must be asked)

friends or have good relationships with your teachers?

 Are there people like you who also attend Millennium?

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Are there people like you who also attend Millennium?