Students entering higher education experience significant declines in both performance and motivation. Compulsory foundational gateway courses are an obvious source of difficulty. Low cost at-scale support is much needed during this critical period, but when and how remain open questions. Grade goals and self-efficacy provide short-term motivation, and are among the greatest correlates to achievement in higher education. Furthermore, students’ ongoing development in domain knowledge and interest can also offer insight on the student experience beyond the gateway course. The current study investigated the interplay between performance, short-term, and long-term motivations in a first-year online mathematics course at a research-intensive university in Pacific-Asia. Participants (n = 175) completed a pretest, four formative quizzes, and surveys measuring self-efficacy (beginning, middle, and end) and interest (beginning and end). Participants were randomly assigned to one of control (no explicit instructions), course-grade-goal, or quiz-grade-goal conditions (i.e., explicit instructions to make goal(s) for the overall course or each subsequent quiz respectively, with feedback on each quiz in relation to goals). Analyses included MANOVAs for difference testing, and testing a longitudinal fully-forward (all past variables simultaneously predicting future variables) latent SEM model. In the face of an uncertain context, self-efficacy remained a salient reciprocal predictor of performance, while students’ interest experienced initial dissonance with performance, realigning by the end of the semester. SEM results indicated that participants who set course-level goals had greater middle-of-term self-efficacy, but also lower interest at the end of the course. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

进入高等教育的学生的表现和动机都显着下降。必修的基础入门课程是一个明显的困难来源。在这一关键时期，非常需要低成本的大规模支持，但何时以及如何提供仍然是悬而未决的问题。成绩目标和自我效能提供短期动力，并且是与高等教育成就最相关的因素之一。此外，学生在领域知识和兴趣方面的持续发展也可以提供对入门课程之外的学生体验的见解。当前的研究调查了亚太地区一所研究密集型大学一年级在线数学课程中表现、短期和长期动机之间的相互作用。参与者 (n = 175) 完成了预测试、四项形成性测验、以及衡量自我效能（开始、中间和结束）和兴趣（开始和结束）的调查。参与者被随机分配到控制组（无明确指示）、课程成绩目标或测验成绩目标条件之一（即明确指示分别为整个课程或每个后续测验制定目标，并提供反馈）与目标相关的每个测验）。分析包括用于差异测试的多元方差分析，以及测试纵向完全前向（所有过去的变量同时预测未来变量）潜在 SEM 模型。面对不确定的环境，自我效能仍然是表现的显着相互预测因素，而学生的兴趣最初与表现不一致，并在学期结束时重新调整。SEM 结果表明，设定课程级别目标的参与者在中期自我效能感更高，但在课程结束时兴趣也较低。讨论了理论和实践意义。