Abstracts - Earli

many girls turn away from science. It is proposed that the stereotyping of physics as a masculinedomain makes stronger engagement in physics threatening for female adolescents, as it endangerstheir developing identity as "woman-to-be". Following this line, it is suggested that one reasonwhy girls abstain from physics might be that they fear that the ascription of any liking for physicswill reduce the extent of their being perceived as feminine. The present study tested whether girlsreacted to highly positive feedback concerning their physics’ abilities in a compensative manner:instead of accepting the positive feedback, we expected them to underline their femininity. Boys,however, who were confronted with the same highly positive feedback, were expected to acceptthe feedback as is. The study used n=135 9th graders in a randomized control group design.Students received false feedback after having worked on physics tests: half of participants receivedhighly positive feedback, the other half received average feedback. The need to demonstrate one’sown gender identity was operationalized as follows: Students were asked how likely they were toread several different articles, half of them about science career options, half about typical sextypedteenager themes (different versions for girls and boys). Results supported our hypothesis:While boys demonstrated relatively more interest in articles dealing with science career optionsafter highly positive feedback on their physics ability (compared to average feedback), this patterncould not be detected with girls. These results can be taken as evidence that girls reject theprescription of high ability in physics and underline their femininity instead.F 1029 August 2007 17:00 - 18:20Room: 0.83 EötvösPaper SessionMotivationChair: Sanna Järvelä, University of Oulu, FinlandExploring the nature of achievement goals through their relations with school-related controlbeliefsTeresa Goncalves, Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, PortugalMarina Serra de Lemos, University of Porto, PortugalAchievement goals have been related to different patterns of behavior, cognition and affect, whichmay enhance or debilitate learning and performance (eg. Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Elliot &Harackiewicz, 1996). In particular, mastery and performance goals have been differentially relatedto perceived competence and to capacity versus effort attributions. However, while mastery goalshave been defined similarly and have evidenced consistent effects on outcomes, there is still somecontroversy about a distinction between approach- and avoidance-performance goals and theirdifferential effects on motivation and achievement (Harackiewicz et al., 2002; Midgley et al.,2001). The aim of the present study was to highlight the nature of the different achievement goalsthrough the exploration of their relations with a multidimensional concept of perceivedcompetence, which separately considers general control-expectancy beliefs, agency beliefs andattributions for different causes (Skinner et al., 1988). Participants were 484 9th grade studentswho completed the personal goals subscale of PALS (Midgley et al., 2000) and the CAMIinstrument (Skinner et al., 1988). Correlational analysis showed that mastery goals wereconsistently related to general control-expectations, perceived access to effort, to teachers’ help, toluck and to capacity, as well as attributions to effort, i.e., a positive perceived-control profile.– 335 –