California Sea Grant College Program

This study investigated that relationship between motivational orientation and comprehension monitoring while studying. It was hypothesized that relatively learning-oriented students would exhibit better comprehension monitoring than relatively performance-oriented students. Data was also collected on several other factors that might be related to both comprehension monitoring and motivation, such as comprehension, self­ concept, and general ability. It was found that comprehension monitoring was positively related to learning goal orientation, but unrelated to performance goal orientation. However, subjects who scored relatively high for learning goal orientation and low for performance orientation were not significantly better at comprehension monitoring than their counterparts who were relatively high in performance goal orientation and low in learning goal orientation.