Meta-Analyses Relating Goal Structures to Achievement: Findings,Controversies,and Impacts

Abstract

Meta-analytic methods are designed to bring order to diverse and complex literatures by summarizing and synthesizing the findings of empirical studies. This article examines how meta-analytic methods were applied to the literature relating cooperative, competitive, and individualistic goal structures to achievement. In this instance, meta-analytic techniques revealed clear patterns in the findings favoring cooperative goal structures. A more important question is "Did the meta-analysis findings affect the way researchers and practitioners think about the literature?" The present article summarizes the findings from a meta-analysis of that literature, reviews substantive and methodological issues surrounding that meta-analysis, and examines how the meta-analysis affected the literature relating goal structures and achievement.

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