GRANDMA DIED AGAIN:

GOAL ORIENTATION AND EXCUSES

IN THE CLASSROOM
Psychoanalysts Team
Cynthia D. ODell
Mark Sudlow Hoyert
Indiana University Northwest
General Psychology (PSY 1012)
Spring, 2009

GRANDMA DIED AGAIN:

GOAL ORIENTATION AND EXCUSES

IN THE CLASSROOM
Cynthia D. ODell
Mark Sudlow Hoyert
Indiana University Northwest
INTRODUCTION
If you don't want to do something,
one excuse is as good as another
Yiddish Proverb
As long as there have been college students and teachers there have been assignments and
reasons for not completing those assignments on time. Certainly most college professors have
experienced the quandary of what to do about missed assignments and their accompanying
excuses, either while designing the class and the syllabus or during interactions with individual
students. Should excuses be accepted and make-up examinations and assignments be developed?
Should efforts be made to ascertain the validity of the claims? While the literature on excuse
making in college students is not a large one, several important factors have been explored in the
last decade.
This paper will provide a review of the literature and then describe the results of a study
conducted by the authors to examine the role of goal orientation on the practice of excuse
making. Student excuses were collected over the course of several years along with assessments
of goal orientation. It was then possible to evaluate the effect of providing a documented or an
undocumented excuse on test scores as well as relate excuse making tendencies to goal
orientation.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
In a sample of 261 college students, Caron, Whitbourne and Halgin (1992) found that
68% confessed to making at least one fraudulent excuse while in college and 99% indicated they
had made at least one legitimate excuse while in college. These findings compare well to more
current data by Roig and Caso (2005) who found that in a sample of 565 college students 72%
indicated making at least one fraudulent excuse while in college and 100% at least one legitimate
excuse.
The most common reason provided for fabricating an excuse was the hope of gaining
more time to study or complete the assignment (Caron, Whitbourne & Halgin, 1992; Roig &
Caso, 2005). Men were more likely than women to fabricate fraudulent excuses as well as to
offer legitimate excuses. Students with GPAs of 3.00 or greater were less likely to fabricate
excuses (Caron, Whitbourne & Halgin, 1992; Roig & Caso, 2005). The most common fraudulent
excuses offered were personal illness, followed by family emergency and failure to understand
the assignment (Caron, Whitbourne & Halgin, 1992; Roig & Caso, 2005). Interestingly, these
were also the three most commonly offered legitimate excuses.
Attribution Theory
Attribution theorists have argued that people use excuses when self-esteem is threatened
by potential performance (Basgall & Snyder, 1988; Smith & Whitehead, 1988; Snyder, Higgins,
& Stucky, 1983). The excuses can serve to diminish public attributions of responsibility (Snyder
& Higgins, 1986).
Most of the extant literature has focused on the beneficial aspects of excuses, however
recent research indicates that there may be negative consequences as well. The triangle model of
responsibility asserts that people are held responsible as a function of the strength of connection

between three components, the persons identity, the event, and the prescriptions relevant to the
event (Tyler & Feldman, 2007).
Excuses serve to weaken the strength of the above connections. Conditions that indicate
the validity of an excuse include believability, care for others and a chance to make changes in
the future. This allows the excuse maker to maintain a positive character. However, when
conditions are not believable, lack or show no future potential for change, or display a lack of
validity or respect for others, excuses can result in more negative character ratings and
repercussions. Additionally, excuses may damage an excuse makers self-image and self-efficacy
beliefs (Schlenker, Pontari, & Christopher, 2001).
Goal Orientation Theory
A second theory, Goal Orientation theory, has been used to examine many aspects of
academic behavior. It holds the potential for gaining insights into excuse making as well. Goal
orientation theory examines the sources of motivation underlying achievement behavior. It
suggests that individuals will orient themselves towards and pursue one or more goals. Two goals
predominatemastery and performance goals. Mastery goals are associated with a variety of
largely adaptive behaviors and attitudes such as the enjoyment of challenge, enjoyment in
acquiring knowledge, use of effective learning strategies, greater persistence and the belief that
competence is obtained incrementally through effort (Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck & Leggett,
1988; Harackiewicz, Barron, & Elliot, 1998; Pintrich & Garcia, 1991).
Performance goals are more complex but have sometimes been associated with a less
adaptive set of academic outcomes such as self-aggrandizing, task-aversion, a reluctance to seek
help, self-handicapping, and learned helplessness (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Urdan, 1997).
Excuse making could certainly be classified as an undesirable academic behavior.

People who pursue performance goals are intensely interested in evaluation, in the
opinions of others, and place a heavy emphasis on appearance in front of others. The excuse
making literature suggests that students who engage in fraudulent excuse making are concerned
with similar issues (Snyder & Higgins, 1986; Tyler & Feldman, 2007).

In

the

case

of

performance goals, these thoughts stem from the basic belief that intelligence or capability is
innate and immutable. That is, performance oriented people believe that you are born with some
set level of intelligence or other ability. Each evaluation provides feedback to your level of
competence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). When the feedback is positive, this may temporarily
provide evidence of competence. When feedback is negativefor instance when an examination
is failedthis is interpreted as a clear signal that you are not competent. In general, negative
feedback is more salient. One successful evaluation provides affirmation until the next trial. One
failed examination provides a convincing demonstration that you are not smart, not competent,
and not worthy in that setting.
Performance oriented students tend to prefer and to seek out easier tasks where success
and validation are more readily obtained. Additionally, performance goals carry a strong
normative component. A student pursuing performance goals will compare her or his
accomplishments to those of others. That student will be more satisfied when outperforming the
others.
Both performance goal orientation and excuse making are associated with
procrastination. Gaining additional time to study or to complete an assignment was the most
frequently cited reason provided by fraudulent excuse makers (Caron, Whitbourne & Halgin,
1992; Roig & Caso, 2005). In both, procrastination appears to be a strategy associated with the
belief that effort indicates a lack of ability and an emphasis on evaluation. Waiting until it is too

late to adequately complete a project can sometimes function as an attempt to buffer the self
against the negative effects of failure. After procrastination, excuse makers and performance
oriented students can attribute the failure to a lack of time or a lack of effort and not to a lack of
ability (Ferrari & Beck, 1998; Urdan, 1997). A meta-analysis of the literature on procrastination
has shown that procrastinators tend to have lower achievement drives, self-esteem and selfefficacy (Steel, 2007).
Excuse making is also associated with internal/external locus of control (Wang &
Anderson, 1994). People with an external locus of control believe that behavior is guided by
fate, luck, or other external circumstances while those with an internal locus of control believe
that their behavior is guided by personal decisions and efforts (Rotter, 1979). Research has
shown that people with an external locus of control are more prone to make excuses, to assign
blame to others and are more sensitive to blame than people with an internal locus of control
(Wang & Anderson, 1994). Basgall and Snyder (1988) suggest that external-internal differences
in excuses will be found only under failure conditions. Changes in behavior due to performance
goal orientation are also exacerbated under conditions of failure (Dweck & Leggett, 1988;
Hoyert & ODell, 2004, 2005, 2006).
This paper explores the possibility that the endorsement of performance goals may be
related to the phenomenon of excuse making and especially to fraudulent excuse making. It also
explores the academic consequences accruing from the intersection of goal orientation and
excuse making.
DESCRIPTION OF THE STUDY
The authors collected excuses across the course of 20 semesters from students enrolled at
an urban campus of a public university in the Midwest. The students were enrolled in a variety of

psychology courses including lower (Introductory Psychology), middle (Statistics) and upper
level content courses. The student demographics of the university are 52% full-time students,
70% female, 23% African American, 11% Latina/o, and 30% over the age of 25. The students
enrolled in psychology courses closely mirror the overall student demographics of the university.
Some students offered excuses following missed tests and assignments. All students
were asked for documentation for each excuse but were allowed to complete the assignment or
exam even if no documentation was produced. Interestingly, the need to produce documentation
for an excuse is not widely required at the college level (Caron, Whitbourne & Halgin, 1992;
Roig & Caso, 2005).
A record of the specific excuse offered along with evidence or lack of documentation
were kept for each excuse. During the semesters that the excuses were collected, many students
in the courses involved participated in a voluntary research study evaluating the relationship
between goal orientation, grades and retention. This paper provides a report on goal orientation
data for 271 of the students whose excuses were collected.
Goal orientation was measured using Roedel, Schraw and Plakes (1994) Goals
Inventory. This instrument consists of 25 statements rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale for
strength of agreement. The statements assess attitudes and behaviors towards mastery and
performance goals as described by Dweck and Leggett (1988). Twelve items are averaged to
produce a mastery goals score (e.g., I prefer challenging tasks even if I dont do as well at
them), and five items are averaged to produce a performance goals score (e.g., I like others to
think I know a lot). Higher scores indicate a stronger endorsement of goal orientation. Testretest reliability has been reported as r=.73 for the mastery goals sub-scale and r=.76 for the

performance goals subscale. Cronbachs alpha for our sample was .81 for mastery goals and .76
for performance goals.
At the end of the academic term the students psychology examination grades and
assignment scores were obtained from the instructors for this analysis.
FINDINGS
Types and Frequencies of Excuses
A total of 596 excuses following missed tests and assignments were offered.
Students were always asked to provide documentation for these excuses. Acceptable
documentation was provided for 233 of the excuses, leaving 363 without documentation.
Previous research has focused on students recollections regarding excuse making rather than
actual counts of excuses. Students in those studies indicated whether an excuse was legitimate or
fraudulent. In this study, the authors only knew whether documentation could be provided for an
actual excuse; legitimacy was not ascertained. The personal beliefs of the authors, however, were
that they were inclined to view the documented excuses as valid and to suspect that many of the
undocumented excuses were fabricated. The 61% of the excuses in the study that were not
accompanied with documentation compare quite closely to the 67% and 72% of college students
who reported using a fraudulent excuse in previous studies (Caron, Whitbourne & Halgin, 1992;
Roig & Caso, 2005).
The relationship between excuse making (and thus completing work at a later date) and
grades was investigated by comparing the examination and assignment scores of two groups of
students: those offering excuses and the general class. Since the various grades were recorded in
different classes with different point values, all grades were normalized to a distribution where
the mean score was 75 (SD=12).

Previous research has suggested that the most frequent reason given for offering a
fraudulent excuse was to obtain extra time to either complete an assignment or to study for an
exam (Caron, Whitbourne & Halgin, 1992; Ferrari & Beck, 1998; Roig & Caso, 2005). The
potential for gaining an undue advantage through this strategy is also one of the prime concerns
for faculty when considering late assignment policies.
However, this strategy didnt seem to have the desired effect. When students offered an
excuse their grade was over one letter grade lower (M=64.7, SD=21.5)) than the class average
(t=2.093, df=1188, p=.037). The effect was even more robust in the students who did not provide
documentation. These students earned markedly lower grades (M=58.5, SD=23.1) than those that
could provide documentation (M=74.7, SD=13.7; t= -9.61, df=594, p < .001). Caron, Whitbourne
and Halgin (1992) and Roig and Caso (2005) report that students with GPAs of 3.00 or greater
are less likely to make fraudulent excuses than students with lower GPAs. The data from this
study demonstrate this effect at a microlevel, the individual test score. Thus, the strategy of
making a fraudulent excuse to obtain extra time seems to be a flawed one.
The most commonly offered excuse in this study was illness, followed by work conflict.
Together, they made up 57% of the excuses offered. The first category is consistent with
previous reports of college excuse making (Caron, Whitbourne & Halgin, 1992; Roig & Caso,
2005). However, work conflict, which makes up a large portion of the excuses presented in this
study, did not even appear as a category in either of the previous studies. This probably reflects
the demographics of the universitys commuter student population as compared to the residential
student populations in the earlier studies. The prototypical excuse, my grandmother died,
appeared at a relatively low and similar frequency as in the earlier studies, which is comforting
both for faculty and grandmothers. Table 1 below summarizes the findings.

Table 1
Summary of Type and Frequency of Excuse Offered
Type of Excuse

Frequency

Percentag

Illness
Other
Work conflict
Child care
Out of town (business)
Death in family
Car problems
Procrastination
Snow
Court Date

221
126
118
30
25
23
21
11
11
10

e
37%
21%
20%
5%
4%
4%
4%
2%
2%
1%

DISCUSSION
Results Related to Goal Orientation Theory
Goal orientation theory predicts that students who offered excuses and especially those
that offered fraudulent excuses should pursue performance goals more than other students. For
the overall sample, students endorsed learning goals (M=3.78, SD=.63) more than performance
goals (M=3.58, SD=.88) (t(1088)=2.226, p=.026). These goal orientation scores are similar to
other classes that the authors have evaluated (Hoyert & ODell, 2004, 2005, 2006). The pattern
of goal endorsement for students who offered excuses was similar to the overall classes. The
excuse makers pursued mastery goals (M=3.73, SD=.71) more than performance goals (M=3.62,
SD=.74). Neither mastery goals nor performance goals for the excuse makers were significantly
different from the overall class goal orientation scores (Mastery goals: t(813)=1.09, p=.278;
Performance goals: t(813)=.693, p=.521).
The goal orientation profile was different, however, when comparing students who
offered excuses with and without documentation. The students who provided documentation
10

endorsed mastery goals (M=3.84, SD=.71) more than performance goals (M=3.57, SD=.78).
Again, these goals were not statistically different from the overall sample (Mastery goals:
t(674)=.963, p=.336; Performance goals: t(674)=.067; p=.336). In contrast, students who could
not provide documentation endorsed performance goals (M=3.67, SD=.75) more than mastery
goals (M=3.61, SD=.69). These students pursued mastery goals less than the overall sample
(t(674)=-2.742, p=.006) and less than the students who provided documentation (t(269)=-2.720,
p=.007). Students who did not provide documentation endorsed performance goals more than the
other two groups but these differences were not significant (compared to the overall sample:
t(674)=1.002, p=.317; compared to students with documentation: t(674)=1.090, p=.276). In
general, it appears that the pursuit of mastery goals buffers students from less productive
strategies such as offering undocumented excuses. This fits within the general constellation of
behaviors associated with mastery orientation (Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck & Leggett, 1988;
Hoyert & ODell, 2004, 2005, 2006).
Goal orientation theory predicts that the two goals are orthogonally related constructs.
Therefore, students can adopt any level of either mastery or performance goals. As a result, it
can be useful to examine the combined effects of the two goals (Ames & Archer, 1988; Dweck &
Leggett, 1988; Hoyert & ODell, 2004, 2005, 2006; Urdan, 1997).

Participants

in

the

current study were classified as high or low in mastery and performance goal orientation through
a median split procedure (mastery: median=3.8; performance: median=3.6). This analysis
identifies four combinations of goals: 1) students who pursue both goals; 2) students who do not
endorse either goal; 3) students who pursue learning goals to the exclusion of performance goals;
and 4) students who endorse performance goals to the exclusion of learning goals. A Chi-square
analysis demonstrates that these frequencies are not equally distributed, (X2 (3) =14.527, p=.002).

11

This is largely driven by the greater number of high performance students (whether low or high
mastery) providing undocumented excuses.
Again there is a need to make a distinction between students who can offer
documentation and those who cannot offer documentation. In this study, the authors were
inclined to treat the excuses accompanied by documentation as legitimate. As can be observed in
Table 2, approximately equal numbers of excuses were provided by students in all four
categories. Thus, the four constellations do not seem to be related to the production of legitimate
excuses. In other words, students in all four categories do get sick, have work conflicts, or
experience a death in the family.
However, a markedly different pattern appears in the students who were not able to
provide documentation. A preponderance of these excuses came from students belonging in the
two high performance categories. It is suspected that many of these excuses may have been
fabricated. From this analysis, it appears that strong endorsement of performance goals is
associated with the production of fabricated excuses. See Table 2 below.
Table 2
Goal Orientation Frequency as a Function of Excuse Type
With Documentation
Goal Orientation
Mastery

High
Low

Performance
High
33
33

Low
41
32

High
Low

Performance
High
52
40

Low
24
16

No Documentation
Goal Orientation
Mastery

As students progress through college they tend to adopt stronger mastery goals and
weaker performance goals (Hoyert & ODell, 2004, 2005, 2006; Pintrich & Garcia, 1991). In
12

this study, the students were enrolled in a variety of psychology courses including lower
(Introductory Psychology), middle (Statistics) and upper level content courses. Introductory
Psychology is primarily taken by students in their first year in college. Statistics is typically
taken during the second year. The upper level content courses are typically taken during the third
year and beyond. In this sample, mastery goals increased and performance goals decreased
across level of coursework as shown in Table 3.
Table 3
Changes in Mastery and Performance Orientation across Level of Coursework
Overall

Goal

Orientation
Mastery
Performance

Class
Intro Psych
3.58
3.78

Statistics
3.68
3.39

Upper-level topics
3.75
3.38

At the same time, excuse making decreased across level of coursework with the highest
percentage of excuses offered in Introductory Psychology classes as shown in Table 4. The rate
of excuse making was negatively related to mastery goals, r = -.957. The rate of excuse making
was positively related to performance goals, r = .994. Thus, as goal orientation theory would
predict, the adoption of performance goals is associated with a less than adaptive academic
outcome, excuse making (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Urdan, 1997).
Table 4
Rate of Excuse Making by Class Type

Overall
Documentation
No Documentation

Class
Intro Psych
7.9%
3.2%

Statistics
5.7%
2.1%

Upper-level topics
5.4%
2.2%

4.7%

3.7%

3.2%

13

However, the goal orientation scores of students who actually produced excuses did not
change across the type of course enrolled in as shown in Table 5. Both mastery (F(2,684) = .931,
p=.881) and performance scores (F(2,684) = .644, p=.901) remained fairly consistent across
course type. On the other hand, as indicated earlier, students undergo a gradual change in goal
orientation while in college (Hoyert & ODell, 2004, 2005, 2006; Pintrich & Garcia, 1991). The
pursuit of mastery goals tends to increase, and the pursuit of performance scores tends to
decrease. However, this growth and change does not seem to occur in the students who offer
excuses.
Table 5
Goal Orientation of Students offering Excuses by Class Type
Class
Mastery
Performance

Intro Psych
3.60
3.61

Statistics
3.86
3.62

Upper-level topics
3.66
3.65

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Performance goals are associated with a variety of maladaptive academic behaviors while
mastery goals are associated with a variety of adaptive academic behaviors (Ames & Archer,
1988; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Harackiewicz, Barron, & Elliot, 1998; Pintrich & Garcia, 1991;
Urdan, 1997). Fabricating excuses is certainly an example of a maladaptive academic behavior.
The results of this study are consistent with the idea that the pursuit of performance goals
is linked with excuse making. Students who did not provide documented excuses endorsed
performance goals more than mastery goals. They also pursued mastery goals less than the
overall student population. A high proportion of undocumented excuses were made by students
with high performance orientation scores. Additionally, the goal orientation of students

14

employing excuses in this study did not change across course level unlike the general student
population who show an increase in mastery goals and a decrease in performance goals.
Conversely, adopting mastery goals seems to prepare students to engage in more adaptive
behaviors and guide students away from less adaptive strategies such as making fraudulent
excuses. Students who pursued mastery goals showed a higher rate of documented excuses.
Mastery orientation increased across course level at the same time that excuse making decreased.
Students with undocumented excuses earned markedly lower grades than those who
could provide documentation. Highly performance oriented students sometimes engage in
maladaptive strategies in an effort to protect their self-esteem. They might procrastinate, selfhandicap, or offer fraudulent excuses at times in which success is not particularly likely
(Harackiewicz, Barron, & Elliot, 1998; Urdan, 1997). The strategy buffers them from the
feedback following a failure. Under normal conditions, this feedback would be interpreted as
evidence of a lack of competence. However, if they can attribute the failure to the excuse or to
procrastination, they are buffered from this negative feedback. Thus, a student could believe that
s/he is still bright and competent, and feel it was the conditions of the excuse that held her or him
back. An external excuse can be found for failure rather than an internal one (Wang & Anderson,
1994).
While students may offer fraudulent excuses in an attempt to protect their self-esteem, the
end result is a decrease in grades that has the potential to harm the very attributes they are
struggling to protect. These results lie in opposition to the Yiddish proverb that begins this
article, as this study demonstrates that any excuse just wont do, rather that documentable
excuses prove superior in assignment and test scores and should do more to protect self-esteem
and self-efficacy as a result.

15

How can teachers translate these results into agents of change for the classroom? The
following are suggestions which may be helpful:
1) Have a clear policy regarding makeup exams and assignments included in
your syllabus. This has the potential to decrease the number of undocumented
excuses offered by students. In this study, the authors asserted in the syllabus
that if an assignment was turned in late or an exam missed, that
documentation must be provided in order to earn the right to be able to make
up the exam or assignment.
2) Require documentation of excuses when allowing students to make up exams
or turn in assignments late. This should decrease the number of fraudulent
excuses offered, which ultimately could harm students grades and selfconcepts.
3) Foster mastery thoughts in your classrooms. An increase in mastery thoughts
is associated with a decrease in excuse making in this study. Thus, structuring
the classroom setting to provide the opportunity for students to be exposed to
and influenced by a mastery orientation should reduce the number of excuses
offered.
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